China
I rarely start threads but I'll just say it here: the current Chinese regime is evil.
It's running concentration camps th
Thanks for the primer, I was not aware of the stigma of "used" property.
I was mostly fascinated by the absurdly high number, so I thought I would share the article.
i could be mistaken about this american life talking about the deals on apartments where people died inside them but found this
also, i think this american life has by far the best genuine summary of the hong kong protests, their origin, their goals, etc than anything else out there - 99% of which i felt was hot garbage and mischaracterized as something which fit our narrow worldview of freedom>communism
I lived in the south which admittedly had the most "foreign" (often HK) investment, but the main reason that there were so many unoccupied apartments is that they were investments. They were built by contractors and sold with the purpose of the value going up and because the foreign investors haven't sold it keeps the buy price artifically raised. Meanwhile the rent price is actually competitive to the market leading to absurdly different prices for the two.
In major cities I doubt that anyone is concerned about an apartment being previously lived in. I think it would be very difficult for a few policy changes to drastically alter this situation. It might be different for other parts of China though.
China designing special landing barges. I still don't understand how this is expected to work, but I think it's getting closer and closer to becoming a reality.
so happy you are back 😀
With so much going on, I am surprised no one has posted here recently.
That's cuz 'Murica don't care what a bunch of Chinese peasants think.
By all accounts, China is doubly ****ed compared to America, but both leaders seem willing to ride their runaway trains into the abyss instead of being the first to jump off.
I see a lot of keyboard warriors shitting on the idea of bringing manufacturing back to America, as if blue collar work is somehow beneath us and everyone should be doing something much more high-minded with their time, but nobody seems willing to acknowledge that the average American is borderline ******ed.
Everyone is kind of ****ed right now. The world is figuring out the new pathways that will establish the new order. Then winners and losers will shake out
As for American manufacturing jobs, they're never coming back. The Trump admin has plainly and directly stated that themselves. They are talking about American citizens building the factories, not working in them.
now that is Farming... because it certainly ain't ranching.
my late friend was from one of the largest independent pork producing families in america
he said the bottleneck to production was pig poop - how you had to constantly cycle it out and into poop ponds
here's an example
my guess is the innovation in that building is using gravity to flush it all out and thus removing the work intensive aspect of raising pigs
By all accounts, China is doubly ****ed compared to America, but both leaders seem willing to ride their runaway trains into the abyss instead of being the first to jump off.I see a lot of keyboard warriors shitting on the idea of bringing manufacturing back to America, as if blue collar work is somehow beneath us and everyone should be doing something much more high-minded wit
USA is still a leader in manufacturing. On a per capita basis, we are easily in top 10 and definitely way ahead of China.
As part of the economic boom, Chinese manufacturing has grown increasingly capital and skill intensive. That comparative advantage they had in low cost labor has become less relevant over time as low cost labor gradually has become displaced by machines.
The reality is manufacturing jobs disappeared from the world, not just left America.
By all accounts, China is doubly ****ed compared to America, but both leaders seem willing to ride their runaway trains into the abyss instead of being the first to jump off.I see a lot of keyboard warriors shitting on the idea of bringing manufacturing back to America, as if blue collar work is somehow beneath us and everyone should be doing something much more high-minded
Every developed country and economic region talks about building more manufacturing capacity, but few people want the jobs.
As elegantly shown by this recently viral graphic from the Financial Times:
So, if you want billions of dollars to be invested in manufacturing capacity, you have to resolve that. Not to mention that even if people wanted the jobs, you would have to have the workforce to begin with. Pre-Covid, the key problem for manufacturing in the developed world was typically lack of workers, not lack of potential for investment.
And sure, you can probably strong-arm a fair amount of business to invest in the US by forcing them to invest to gain access to the local market. But I doubt that this outweighs the amount of business that needs stable conditions, both economically and politically, over a long time before they will do that. Meaning, that your economic policies would have to hinge on broad support and be predictable. Building large-scale manufacturing capacity when you don't know if the policies will survive an election is a lot of risk, let alone that you don't even know if they will survive the current president's hourly mood-swings.
As for a trade-war with China, there is no doubt about which country is the bigger and more powerful economy. The US wins that comparison each and every time. However, democratic governments aren't very resilient to recession and downturn - it tends to make them lose elections rather quickly, whereas China's government will sit fairly securely even in the case of widespread hardship for the population.
Also, somewhat ironically, a lot of the argument behind this has been about government debt and deficits. However, bizarrely the current US administration has led you down a path where these things have grown from "important issue" to "extreme weakness", as the US' historically enviable position of paying less for its debt per dollar than most other countries is now starting to look more shaky.
td i think you're grossly misunderstanding that data
1/4th of all americans polled said they'd be better off working in manufacturing, that's by no means an insignificant number
and importantly, these are the neets who when they don't find gainful existence often turn to crime
8% of all adults in america have a felony conviction, 33% of all black male adults have one
it may not be a cure all, but bringing back manufacturing surely couldn't hurt alleviate that insanity
that chart tells the exact opposite story of what you're trying to say
Yeah, that chart indicates there could be as many as 55 million Americans who would happily take one of those factory jobs.
The price of DoorDash would definitely go up, but people might actually be able to afford their $38 sandwich with that sweet, sweet factory cash.
Lol...
7% strong agreed and 19% somewhat agreed so its more like 7% would happily take a factory job and 19% would realize they make more answering phones for an insurance company or w/e bullshit they do
I'm sure there are plenty of towns in the rust belt that would be ecstatic to have union factory jobs.
Too bad they all vote anti union. Whoops!
I admit I haven't spent a lot of time looking at things from the China perspective, like say Rick may have.
So I guess I have a general question along these lines. What exactly does China (or I guess Xi) want? And is what they want reasonable, for China, the US, and the world?
As an (upper?) middle class white collar American, should "opposing" China even be a big deal at all for me?
Yeah, that chart indicates there could be as many as 55 million Americans who would happily take one of those factory jobs.
The price of DoorDash would definitely go up, but people might actually be able to afford their $38 sandwich with that sweet, sweet factory cash.
If this was true, you wouldn't have a shortage of workers in manufacturing today, which you do. Well, at least before your current administration decided to take a blowtorch to the US economy.
Going from a survey response like this hinges on a lot of "actually would" and "actually could" that isn't noted. There is of course also the "strongly agree" and "somewhat agree" difference that coordi noted. If we ignore the "would" and focus on the "could", that brings us to being able to. Jobs in manufacture in 2025 are overwhelmingly skilled labor, meaning you need education to do them. Not necessarily a long education, but 2-4 years can still be a lot pending on your life situation.
Take this conundrum to the macro-level and realize it is made even worse by your pool of labor not being endless, and is easy to see why you had labor shortages in manufacturing.
Of course, it is not impossible to switch this around. But as one can easily see, it takes time. You need to build infrastructure, schools, colleges, give business incentives and lay the groundwork for appealing to long time investment.
But here is the rub: Politically, your country does not seem to give a **** about stuff like that. This is pretty exactly what you were doing from 2021-2025 under the Biden presidency with bills using funds, grants and incentives to generate massive levels of investment, which gave you the softest post-Covid landing in the developed world and you were leap-frogging other developed economies by a wide margin, and you even managed to do it with lower levels of inflation than those other economies had. The overwhelming political response was either ignoring it or claiming it was crap.
I'm sure there are plenty of towns in the rust belt that would be ecstatic to have union factory jobs.
The town might want them but that is different than getting people situated in a position to do it.
We have a shortage of hvac techs and electricians, jobs that pay well and don't require a 4 year degree but we can't just snap our fingers because we just realized a way to bring back the good old days with some new american jobs. It isn't about feeding it money, you still need training and infrastructure that has been neglected for decades, and of course the people willing to transition into it - but those people all need an immediate job to pay their minimums on their student loans. It's the path we took.
Also, you cant just drop a plant in the middle of shitville and expect everything to bloom. You need the right housing, schools, healthcare, transportation - all things that could take a generation to build.
The town might want them but that is different than getting people situated in a position to do it.We have a shortage of hvac techs and electricians, jobs that pay well and don't require a 4 year degree but we can't just snap our fingers because we just realized a way to bring back the good old days with some new american jobs. It isn't about feeding it money, you still need t
fwiw the us with incredibly low interest rates could for. along time invest in the future and new technology related to climate changes for example but they let china dominate the electric car indiustries now other similar stuff (solar pannel,etc).
the americans wants an immutable way of living which is impossible and what a great response by cordi that american believe trusting corporations to take care of them instead of unions to discount huge benefits for returbibg factories (which probably would be filled by 50% robotics anyway..) ....
imho there is such a huge amount of beliefs that are so wrong over there i guess it will still take a good amount of pain before they arrive at the right conclusion shrug.
Winston Churchill once famously observed that Americans will always do the right thing, only after they have tried everything else.
I'm sure there are plenty of towns in the rust belt that would be ecstatic to have union factory jobs.
This fundamentally misses the point of the chart. I’d wager even in those towns, we are looking at major support for manufacturing jobs in town and much less support for working those jobs themselves. This has implications on both the short and long term ability of such towns to actually support the factories.
The town might want them but that is different than getting people situated in a position to do it.We have a shortage of hvac techs and electricians, jobs that pay well and don't require a 4 year degree but we can't just snap our fingers because we just realized a way to bring back the good old days with some new american jobs. It isn't about feeding it money, you still need t
Come on, where is that America can do attitude?
I admit I haven't spent a lot of time looking at things from the China perspective, like say Rick may have.So I guess I have a general question along these lines. What exactly does China (or I guess Xi) want? And is what they want reasonable, for China, the US, and the world?As an (upper?) middle class white collar American, should "opposing" China even be a big deal at all f
chinese look at things with a long view
historically, they were nearly always the wealthiest and most advanced nation on earth - just happened to be doing that alone as they are larger than all of europe b with impassable mountains, dessert or jungle along the borders and little interest in maritime activities beyond private enterprises trading in the local hemisphere
so they see where they are now and see it as a massive failure, that they are historically the best in the world and want to reclaim their rightful place, where nearly all chinese unanimously agree they belong as the pre-eminent country in the world
it's far less a question of whether or not they attain financial prosperity - despite all the doom and gloom it's very much on it's way to being a modernized and wealthy country overall, not just among the urban elites - but rather they will then continue to solely care about things happening within their own borders or whether they'll take more of a team america world police approach
chinese look at things with a long viewhistorically, they were nearly always the wealthiest and most advanced nation on earth - just happened to be doing that alone as they are larger than all of europe b with impassable mountains, dessert or jungle along the borders and little interest in maritime activities beyond private enterprises trading in the local hemisphereso they see
Well, one would think you want there to be a functional world to rule over once they reach the pinnacle they feel is their destiny. You dont want the world order to completely collapse because you are instigating strife everywhere for your own gain. Feeding the war machines of actors like NK, Russia, IRGC and Houthis is definitely playing with fire in this respect.
