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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?

#851
post #487
post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German engineering etc was famously rather good before the war too. The Ruhr valley is part of the reason for this: energy sources (coal) and minerals (iron, copper, etc) very close together. It was the ideal setting for an industrial awakening. Also, even after the marshall plan, Germany kept its existing advantages in industry in large part simply by actually encouraging them to exist. The UK has no industrial poli…

It wasn't a criticism of Germany at all, just that I think alot happened there that was special politically with the east and west, support for reunified Germany was massive, it's just therefore a bit hard to say what would of happened if after the war it was lumped with huge debt and ignored.

Not being allowed a real military, protected by US resources instead, means a huge amount of investment freed up for the civilian sector (similar to Japan/Italy to some extent)

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

#852

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bold claim. Do you have a source for that?

subtlety is lost. I am saying they aren't selling you $200+ shoes. They are selling you a shoe that maybe costs them $10 and $190+ of "brand".

No, you said they were loss leaders, which means Nike loses money on them.

Now you're saying they're not, that Nike makes massive, massive profits on them.

Sorry if I'm not seeing your "subtlety" here. But instead of blaming me for misunderstanding you, it's fine to just say whoops, that you were mistaken about the term you used, or meant something else. We all have brain farts sometimes ;)

Also, the article itself gives actual numbers. You don't need to make up your own here, which are not correct.

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

#854
post #4

It’s like people excited about the new datacenter being built in their town, think of all the jobs that will bring they cry. Nobody realizes it takes 6 people to run a datacenter. Bringing “manufacturing back to the US” is a fool’s errand. The future of manufacturing is automation, not jobs.

i don't understand the obsession with jobs anyway people don't want a job, they want money and purpose most jobs barely deliver either

I don't understand your comment. People don't need money, people need food to eat, houses to live in, and so on. And the thing about all this food and houses is that Jesus doesn't produce them, other people produce them.

And since producing all this is not such an easy task, the people who produce the food and build the houses want something in return. That's what we call jobs.

So when you say that jobs is not needed - you mean that there is no need to live in houses or that there is no need to give the people who build the houses anything in return?

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

#855
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like a grant from the government to work on your project of interest with no expectation that it be commercially successful. You want to be an artist the government gives you a grant to support yourself while contributing to the cultural lexicon. Scarecity is manufactured today for profit and not real; nobody needs to work at a 7/11 but they are essentially trapped into those sorts of jobs because they are…

Why on Earth would taxpayers give their hard earned money to other people to work on their "projects of interest"? Scarcity is very real, I'm not sure why you would feel otherwise. Fortunately, we have largely eliminated scarcity of the necessities of life due to economic policies that are as far from your suggestions as possible, but that doesn't mean that they are produced at no cost or that scarcity in general doe…

>Why on Earth would taxpayers give their hard earned money to other people to work on their "projects of interest"?

I don't know, but if suddenly someone really has a problem with the fact that the government is still not taking enough money from them to finance various unpromising projects, I am happy to take on the government's work and free of charge get any amount of money from them to implement the widest range of interesting projects.

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

#856
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fishing is less profitable for the whole UK than Warhammer. This sounded completely insane to me. I tried to look up numbers and found that Games Workshop brings in > 0.5 billion in revenue (!!), compared to all of UKs fisheries at 1 billion-ish (profit margins are, as you'd expect, pretty favorable for the plastic figurines that they don' even paint for you). Thanks for this interesting fact.

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…

Whilst I appreciate that there are national and security interests to consider, I'd still say fish aren't one of them.

I think a lack of seafood would have less of an impact to the general population than say, lack of satellite navigation or communication technology.

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

#857

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's actually a really good argument in favour of that -- and in favour of paying income tax not as a direct tax (withheld from wages) but with a delay. It makes the taxes visible and painful and they will therefore (potentially) not rise as fast or as much.

It also puts more tax burden on the less wealthy. Sales tax is regressive; income tax is progressive. But yes, that’s exactly why the American right makes taxation so cumbersome and horrible: to make people think that taxes are bad, as there’s this assumption you can have civilization without paying for it.

[dead]

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

#858

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During feudalism the rich donated a far larger percent of their assets. The trend has been that the rich donate a smaller percent since then

Are you counting tithes as donations?

Tithe/charity/donations/taxes. It's fungible from a socio economic perspective.

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

#859
"Retailers mark up the shoes 100% to recoup various costs and generate a profit."

Whenever I enter any physical store it always boggles my mind how insanely inefficient the whole endeavor is for all involved. But that retail basically swallows half of the price is just unbelievable.

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

#860
post #128
post #83

> But if we bump the cost of freight, insurance, and customs from $5 to, say, $28, then they wholesale the shoes to Footlocker for about $75. And if Footlocker purchases Nike shoes for $75, then they retail them for $150. Everyone needs to fixed percentages to avoid losses. I don't understand this paragraph. If Footlocker was okay with $50 profit/shoe, why do they need to claim $75 profit/shoe in their costs per shoe…

In theory, you're right, however it ignores some key points; -Some of their costs are in fact linear based on the cost of the item. Inventory cost doubles, perhaps now they have to take out higher interest debt to finance that. Things like insurance would also at least double. Transaction fees (like card fees at about ~2%) and other parts (like returns risk) also increase linearly. -Reduced sales due to increased pri…

> Inventory cost doubles, perhaps now they have to take out higher interest debt to finance that.

I'm pretty sure Footlocker doesn't borrow money to pay Nike up front for inventory. Nike is smart enough to know that there's zero chance their shoes will be sold if they sit in a warehouse, so Nike might as well ship them to retailers and get paid gradually as the shoes are sold to consumers.

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