When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019)

#91

Post by missedthecue » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 4:57 AM UTC

newyankee wrote: post #83

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their GNP per capita is now greater than all of western europe What if Shenzhen didn't exist across the river? HK is part of a unique economic environment with significant externalities making it prosperous.

Approaches that make small countries like Singapore, Taiwan or Hongkong succesful are not easily scaled to a large one like India. Using them as examples in arguments is very disingenuous.

Just because India has 1 billion people does not mean that they would be better off buying inferior goods at higher prices.

Hong Kong is equal or larger than Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, and Ireland.

Taiwan is larger than all those, plus the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, and many others.

They are richer because of their adoption of free trade.

Re: When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019)

#92

Post by systemvoltage » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 5:02 AM UTC

a9h74j wrote: post #60

systemvoltage wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wrong, misguided and naive. International trade when done with effective reciprocity and managing the trade deficit, can lead to competition on a larger scale, better outcome for consumers and specialization in particular aspect of manufacturing or services. Even domestically, specialization is how human species became to me. If humans continued to be inwards looking and never engaged in barter-trade or any k…

> aliens on another planet Related thought experiment: What if the aliens were 1000 years ahead in patenting everything (in a way which didn't expire), then forced their IP regime on Earth, extracting IP rent for everything, since it would _only_ make sense to trade with them?

You know the answer. Mutual trade makes sense when trade deficit is managed, there is cooperation and symmetry. We don't need to go to aliens for that, right now we have China that's creating asymmetry in the trade and it doesn't play by the fair rules. For example, US allowing TikTok and WeChat but China banning Facebook/IG and Google.

Re: When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019)

#93

Post by mahkeiro » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 5:14 AM UTC

a9h74j wrote: post #60

systemvoltage wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wrong, misguided and naive. International trade when done with effective reciprocity and managing the trade deficit, can lead to competition on a larger scale, better outcome for consumers and specialization in particular aspect of manufacturing or services. Even domestically, specialization is how human species became to me. If humans continued to be inwards looking and never engaged in barter-trade or any k…

> aliens on another planet Related thought experiment: What if the aliens were 1000 years ahead in patenting everything (in a way which didn't expire), then forced their IP regime on Earth, extracting IP rent for everything, since it would _only_ make sense to trade with them?

It won’t prevent new product to be patented, so innovate...

Re: When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019)

#94

Post by 082349872349872 » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 5:45 AM UTC

johannes1234321 wrote: post #50

slim wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

coke gets delivered around the world in barrels concentrated. only water is added in factories.

This is a nice legend about the secret recipe. However production differs oflver the world. I.e. I'm the US the sweetener is high fructose corn syrup, while Europe uses Sycrose.

It's possible to find sugar-sweetened in the US: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23363053 I've never tried to get HFCS here, but doubt it'd be easy.

(anyone know specifically why the sweetener differs? I'm guessing either cost or legislation...)

Re: When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019)

#95

Post by RichardCA » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 6:05 AM UTC

082349872349872 wrote: post #94

johannes1234321 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a nice legend about the secret recipe. However production differs oflver the world. I.e. I'm the US the sweetener is high fructose corn syrup, while Europe uses Sycrose.

It's possible to find sugar-sweetened in the US: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23363053 I've never tried to get HFCS here, but doubt it'd be easy. (anyone know specifically why the sweetener differs? I'm guessing either cost or legislation...)

Different theories, but there's a strong belief that Archer Daniels Midland lobbied intensively to create the current status quo in the US.

http://www.motherlindas.com/HFCS_murky.htm

https://grist.org/article/adm-high-fructose-corn-syrup-and-e...

https://youtu.be/gPbh6Ru7VVM (skip to 5:30)

Re: When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019)

#96

Post by rurban » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 6:50 AM UTC

perl4ever wrote: post #86

newyankee wrote: post #7

When India liberalized in 1991 and welcomed foreign investment again rick Coke simply bought out a lot of local competitors. Even today my favorite local soda 'thums up' is marketed as a separate drink by Coke in India. A water scarce country like India should really not promote high consumption of soda and sugar based drinks. However the same cannot be said about other industries. Pre liberalization India used to be…

>A water scarce country like India What makes you say that?

The fact that India has a water crisis, caused by a political/corruption crisis.

https://thewaterproject.org/water-crisis/water-in-crisis-ind...

Re: When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019)

#97

Post by unishark » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 6:56 AM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #78

missedthecue wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People like to pretend that protectionism is such a bad thing" David Ricardo mathematically proved it was a bad thing over 200 years ago. It absolutely befuddles me that people, especially in scientific communities, continue to support its implementation. Hong Kong has always been free trade and their GNP per capita is now greater than all of western europe, barring Norway (which is equal to HK). Protectionism makes…

> their GNP per capita is now greater than all of western europe What if Shenzhen didn't exist across the river? HK is part of a unique economic environment with significant externalities making it prosperous.

> What if Shenzhen didn't exist across the river?

I think you have this backwards. Milton Friedman was already raving about Hong Kong leading the world back in 1980.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0dfiWM-rsE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_to_Choose

The first special economic zone was created in Shenzhen in 1980, coincidentally. It's population at that time was around 60k according to this link:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/shenzhen-popu...

Hong Kong's population was in the millions at that time. The SEZ was created specifically to imitate HK and other successful neighboring economies.

Re: When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019)

#98

Post by rurban » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 6:57 AM UTC

jlg23 wrote: post #20

tadasZ wrote: post #17

In my opinion Vita-Cola, Polo-Cockta, Kofola faded not because of coca cola, but because they were controlled by soviet mentality people from "higher status", party people and so on, who didn't care about anything but themselves, a lot of companies disappeared after soviet union collapsed (thank god it did collapse) because of crime, corruption and complete incompetence.

Vita-Cola is again alive and kicking, and I am one who actually loves it. I am sure this is not just nostalgia, because, even though I was born in the GDR, I was 9 when the wall fell and maybe had 3 glasses of Vita Cola before. "crime, corruption and complete incompetence" are often cited as the reasons for why local brands disappeared, along with "nostalgia" for their revival. I personally believe people just wanted…

Also living in the east. Many local services only offer Vita-Cola, no Coca-Cola. By choice. And it tastes good. Support the local economy.

Re: When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019)

#99

Post by imtringued » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 8:04 AM UTC

Mekantis wrote: post #2

People like to pretend that protectionism is such a bad thing. But Western nations built themselves through protectionism, it's something China has been doing to great success and the Asian tiger economies (primarily South Korea) did as well. After all, there's only so much you can do for your population if you never ensure a steady supply of high quality jobs that provide a path into the middle class, and you don't…

The real secret is economic stability and business friendliness. Foreign investors will automatically flock to your country if you do that and they will leave as soon as you destroy investor confidence. Foreign investors are good because they provide money, training and business expertise. Once foreign companies have set up shop in your country they provide a workplace for your citizens but more importantly your citizens are becoming skilled workers. Some of those skilled workers may become entrepreneurs and when that happens you will need some degree of protectionism for specific industries.

Argentina basically trampled on economic stability and investors. The idea behind welfare is dragging up the poor because there are so many rich people your country can easily afford it, obviously Argentina is not such a country. They have some core export industries but not much else. What happened instead is that the government spent too much on social programs, ran a heavy deficit with no ability to borrow money because they were locked out of the international lending market through their own incompetence. So you have to print money to fund government programs which leads to heavy inflation. They also randomly partially nationalize companies if they are mostly owned by foreign investors. Imagine you buy a car and the car dealer calls you tomorrow that you must bring your car back for a refund. Once an investor gets burned he won't come back. The importance of investor money can't be overstated when your country is bleeding money with no ability to borrow. Metaphor: For some reason people prefer being "in moderate pain" for the rest of their lives over a quick but highly painful recovery.

Re: When India kicked out Coca-Cola, local sodas thrived (2019)

#100

Post by imtringued » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 8:20 AM UTC

mardifoufs wrote: post #24

adi2907 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China never allowed unfettered access to global firms. Since Deng Xiaoping opened up, the rule for a foreign firm to gain access was 1) to tie up with a local company which will have significant stake and 2) ensure technology transfer to the local company over a period. This was a pre condition for market access, and basically how electronics components makers were built. The recent stars like Huawei, Xiaomi and Leno…

As I said, China is now able to afford protectionism because of a much more foreign investment minded policy than India. It's weird to only focus on protectionism being a positive when almost all of the more protectionist countries are way behind economically. China has been the most successful when it has had the least closed economy and it didn't start producing Lenovo laptops because of protectionism. If that was…

I agree with your comment. First you want to drag your country up to the same level everyone is at. Usually this is done by letting investors into your country because they will do the same thing they did at home. Only once the investors have established a profitable and self sufficient industry it is time to kick them out.

Someone also mentioned that Brazil is putting tarrifs on foreign goods. This is fine but there should be an exemption for foreign companies operating within the borders of your country. The exemption would apply to products assembled within Brazil. That way Apple could decide to build a factory in Brazil and provide job opportunities.