The Coming Decline of 'Made In China' 327
retroworks writes: Adam Minter documents the move of Chinese steel mills to Africa, and speculates that China's years of incredible rates of economic growth may already be over. This one steel mill's move to Africa, by itself, increases Africa's production by two-thirds. "The officials in Hebei Province who oversee the company may have felt they had no choice. First, they undoubtedly faced political pressure to reduce their environmental impact in China: reducing production of steel, cement and glass -- all highly polluting industries, especially in developing countries -- will have a direct impact on Xi Jinping’s pollution goals. (Starting in Hebei will have the added benefit of cleaning up polluted, neighboring Beijing.) Second, Hebei may simply be at a loss as to how to scale back businesses that they recognize have become massively bloated. Officials in China’s construction-related industries clearly have too much capacity and too little demand." It's also possible that these moves will be encouraged by China's transition to clean economy, though that could be a bad thing for pollution in Africa.
What Will They Do... (Score:5, Interesting)
And what will all our fine corporate interests do when they run out of wage slaves?
Re:What Will They Do... (Score:4, Insightful)
Robots.
Besides with 7.5 billion humans and growing I doubt "wage slaves" will ever run out.
The answer to every human problem? Population control.
Re:Pop Ctrl can't happen in an entitlement society (Score:5, Insightful)
Developed countries don't need to promote population control - it happens by itself. Every developed nation except for the United States (which has large amounts of immigration) has a declining birth rate. And, yes, it is a problem for retirement schemes.
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Correct, except for the part about the US. Not sure why you're misinformed about that. It's been declining for six years now, and is at an all-time low. [google.com]
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After a few generations, any genes that promote big families will get more successful, and experience a higher growth rate.
Unless, of course, that doesn't actually happen.
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You can dream, but that's how evolution has happened for the past few billions of years, and that's how its going to continue.
Point to the previous species that has genetic engineering.
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Point to the previous species that has genetic engineering.
So we'll force people to be genetically engineered ? If you can pull it off, that can work.
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So we'll force people to be genetically engineered ? If you can pull it off, that can work.
Force people to be healthier? Smarter? Stronger? They'll be standing in line.
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Re:Pop Ctrl can't happen in an entitlement society (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not really about genes, it's about education and economics. As women become more educated, they start to take control of their own reproduction, and that inevitably means lower birth rates. And as for economics, in undeveloped countries, a large number of kids is economically advantageous, as they serve as a work force for whatever business the family is engaged in. In developed nations, large numbers of children is typically an economic drain (since you're more likely to work for someone else as an employee), not a financial advantage, so there's pressure to have fewer children.
My mother and father both came from families of five children each. That generation had considerably fewer children themselves - around three on average. Children from those families (my generation) had fewer still, averaging about two. So, within my own extended family, I've seen the exact same trend that we're seeing nationally. As such, anecdotally, I'd have to disagree with your prediction, as I've seen evidence to the contrary across three generations now.
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Not to mention the health care situation in undeveloped countries. In America, a baby born today has an excellent chance of reaching adulthood. In a developing country, that chance can be greatly reduced. If your baby only has a 1 in 10 chance of reaching adulthood, you need to have 10 kids just to make sure you have one survivin
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Re:Pop Ctrl can't happen in an entitlement society (Score:4, Insightful)
For education and economics, 1000 years is a long time. At current rates of change, a very long time.
For Human genetic evolution, 1000 years is barely long enough to be noticed.
We will have worked out how to live sustainably on this planet, or how to expand to the stars, or all died off before human genetic changes of the kind you are talking about are a population growth issue.
T
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The gene that promotes small families (also known as Greed) is way stronger than any "large family" gene that might emerge
You can have both. Have a few children, and abandon them at a church. Somebody will take care of them, while you can pursue your greed.
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but in general governments in first world nations can NEVER promote population control. Why?
Because it's not a problem with first world nations.
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As a child I remember recognizing the parallels of this to the global human population. I remember trying to explain to people that the world was of a
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I remember trying to explain to people that the world was of a fixed size for us,
It's not. Even if for some reason we chose not to expand into the Solar System, we still can use resources much more efficiently on Earth. That includes resources consumed by the human body.
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You may try to argue that the point I'm referring to is way off, but what you'd be failing to take into consideration is that between now and that poin
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For every increase in human population on the Earth the standard of living goes down for humanity as a whole
Not true. For example, if humanity was a single tribe and remained at the size of a few hundred people for the rest of eternity, it is extremely unlikely that they would develop any real understanding of the world. Nor would they be capable over the livable span of the Earth to use a significant fraction of the Earth's resources for anything..
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Re:What Will They Do... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Now of course the island if overrun with deer. And the suckers aka deer can swim so now as you go further south in Rhode Island there are deer warnings everywhere.
The state does occasionally allow hunters to cull the herd, except there aren't enough hunters to really have an impact.
And today on the MBTA commuter from Prov
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Here, take a load off:
This will cheer you up [youtube.com]
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No, I'm an advocate of not having children. And yes, I started with myself.
I didn't have myself either. It's acually pretty common.
Automated manufacturing (Score:5, Informative)
Haven't you heard? Manufacturing is coming back to America, bigtime. It's just coming back automated. Relatively few jobs are coming back with the manufacturing.
Hate to sound like a luddite, but what's a person to do for a job? Farming is automated, manufacturing is automated, even service industry jobs are becoming automated (self checkout at grocery stores, robotic stocking, brick and mortar retail dying out in favor of Amazon). Driving/shipping jobs are going to be automated.
And there just isn't much economic demand for lots of engineers and scientists and artists--a few of each can serve the entire planet and thus everyone who labors is trying to "supply" a few jobs with little demand for labor. And we can't all just doctor/nurse and sue each other. I don't see us making money entertaining each other either, there have to be people who can afford and pay for entertainment. Wages are going to crash, then what?
-PM
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Re:Automated manufacturing (Score:5, Insightful)
Just requires the obscenely rich to share their wealth.
Re:Automated manufacturing (Score:5, Insightful)
All of the wealth in America, including all corporate assets, all retirement plans, and all home equity, is less than $350k [usdebtclock.org] per citizen. That won't solve much. Even if you distributed it, most people would be broke in a year - wealth is a habit more than anything else.
In the long run, we benefit far more from wise investment decisions than from redistribution, because economic growth is exponential growth, and redistribution is a one-time constant. 95% of Americans live better than 99% of everyone who has ever lived. The median income in America is far more than the $30k or so that makes you a "1%er" of the world. Exponential growth per capita comes from technological progress, and there's no reason to believe technology will stop progressing.
Are the currently wealthy the best as making investment decisions? No, of course it's not optimal, but it's not terrible either. The entire premise of Capitalism is that you buy wealth, rather than being gifted it for loyalty to the leader or military conquest, so the better you invest your wealth, the more you can accumulate. That's a good thing when it works out that way!
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All of the wealth in America, including all corporate assets, all retirement plans, and all home equity, is less than $350k per citizen. That won't solve much.
Stop letting people sneak it out of the country legally, which you can only do if you have scads of money.
The entire premise of Capitalism is that you buy wealth, rather than being gifted it for loyalty to the leader or military conquest, so the better you invest your wealth, the more you can accumulate. That's a good thing when it works out that way!
Yeah. Only it hasn't worked that way in a long time. Once you get enough money to buy legislation, the game board is tilted.
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Oh calm down. Nobody is advocating stealing from anyone. Just a light hearted response that the 1 hour work week and all holding hands singing koombaya will never work. Take your free market trickle down dogma bullshit elsewhere. Happy New Year!
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It's good solid Libertarian philosophy; you have the freedom to starve... or burn up in a flammable river. All that counts is that no one has to pay taxes or have to answer to anyone else.
Libertarianism is the philosophy of the sociopath.
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> Libertarianism is the philosophy of the sociopath.
Only in its extreme. The problem is, there are a lot of extreme libertarians.
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If we don't have jobs because there's no more productive work to do, then we could, at least theoretically, live lives of leisure and self-improvement.
"IF". We already know, from a casual glance at the world outside of the developed world, that there is plenty of productive work to do.
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Automation increases the demand for engineers and scientists. Those technologies don't just appear or are supported out of thin air.
The jobs being replaced by automation are mundane repetitive jobs - work that is demeaning for a human anyways. The problem impeding the rise of automation is that surplus humans are just cheaper robots.
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Instead, jobs are defined by work that people want to do. The more things we want done, the more jobs get created. We haven't run out of things to do, we've just taken care of the emergency stuff. There is a lot of new things we could do, so there are a lot of new jobs we can create.
When people automate jobs away, they decide t
Re:Automated manufacturing (Score:5, Interesting)
Wrong. Jobs are created by demand. Not the other way around. Look at thr great depression as proof? With no demand due to lack of funding led to no jobs which led back to a lack of demand in a 15 year loop.
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Wrong. Jobs are created by people coming up with ideas for new businesses based on new products and best product ideas come from people trying to solve their own problems in life.
Saying that demand creates jobs is fine, when the jobs in question are in very well understood industries, but it is wrong even then, because all new supply brings down prices even further and creates more choices. So in reality SUPPLY creates new demand, because the bigger the supply, the lower the prices.
If TVs cost 1000USD per
Re:Automated manufacturing (Score:4, Insightful)
And there's a problem. People are going to end up unable to participate in the market, because you need money to do that, and you get money from doing jobs, and you can't get a job if there aren't any to get.
This is going to be a problem for us at some point, and we're going to need to deal with it. Which, knowing us, will probably happen way too late.
Re:Automated manufacturing (Score:5, Insightful)
there are always jobs where it is cheaper/easier to hire somebody
There have always been. Don't make the assumption that this'll always be true.
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Moreover, demand is a psychological thing. By your argument we can simply create more demand by education.
The main thing you misunderstand is that I was talking big picture and long term, in response to someone with a big picture/long term question. Short term there are lots of things that interfere with people getting jobs - education, fear, etc.
You also mentioned 'lack of funding', which is the oppos
Re:Automated manufacturing (Score:4, Insightful)
In that case, we are in a good situation, because human demand is infinite. The more we have, the more we want. There's no end to it. I want my own planet.
No, it's not.
This is a major fallacy of economic thinking that really needs to be put to bed. It isn't true. Thinking like this is the basis for the Trickle Down Theory of economics, which has been soundly falsified. No, we won't always want more. Unbridled all-consuming unsatisfiable greed is a neurosis. It is abnormal and very unusual. Adults who suffer from the condition are considered stunted, little more than children. Children are expected to grow out of it, if they ever go through that phase at all. If you always want more, everybody around you thinks there's something wrong with you, and will usually avoid being around you any more after a while.
Normal people, by definition most people, are satisfiable. And satisfiable without actually all that many resources, in the grand scheme of things. Yes we all want more than a 19th century standard of living, but that's because the ancient Romans had a better standard of living than most of the world in the 19th century. It didn't take much to do better than that. Our needs get satisfied in a hurry. A variety of food, some indoor plumbing, and a roof that doesn't leak covers most of it. Add on some form of personal transportation if you live in a large, mostly empty continent like North America, and you're done. The wants that go on top of that are actually quite minimal. Almost nobody has more than two cell phones, and the vast majority of the world has only one. Practically every type of consumer electronics and appliance follows the same pattern. People have one cell phone, one tablet, one laptop, one desktop (they forgot they had), one blender, one microwave, one toaster oven, one deep fryer. The only people who have six cell phones are neurotic or app developers (but I repeat myself).
Yes, once you have one of everything, you can just go bigger. But again, there are pretty serious upper limits. Most people don't want a 700 room palace on the order of Versailles. Even those who did had a tendency to stuff 3000 permanent residents into that space. Most people don't want their own yacht, let alone their very own cruise ship, or there would be many more yachts in the world. So it goes for every thing you can possess.
So no, most people won't always want more. Most people in developed nations are quite satisfied with what they have. Sure they dream about palaces and fleets of sports cars, but drop unlimited funds on their cringing heads and they still won't buy all that. They'd be uncomfortable trying to live in a palace.
People's needs can be trivially satisfied. People's wants can be easily satisfied. Whither now your broken economic system that requires unlimited growth?
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jobs are defined by work that people want to do.
Jobs are defined by work that people with money don't want to do.
When people automate jobs away, they decide to do more work, creating new jobs.
Or, more tasks to automate. Which creates a few more jobs, yes, but not many.
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Automate X frees up people Y to do task Z. Task Z starts getting done (eventually - after people figure out it is the next thing to do and learn how to do it), Bit not just Z. When Z is done, AA needs to be done, then AB then ACIt isn't one task to automate it is a BILLION tasks to automate. A billion jobs that we don't even try
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The entire process is a feedback loop with a delay built in. This delay causes the problems we call unemployment and depression, but the feedback loop eventually fixes them.
Yes, that's the idea.
The amount of work that needs to be done is mindbogglingly. We don't do it because it is so big, and not as important as feeding each other. Things like genetic research, space research, policing polluting factories, rescuing abandoned animals, etc. etc. etc. etc.
The first three of those things are all things which in the USA in particular are actually prevented by government, in one way or another. Take policing polluting factories. I know someone who used to get paid by the government (EPA IIRC) to climb stacks and probe them for emissions. He told me that everything he ever sampled was over the limits, and that they can find stacks over the limit as quick as they can pay people to sample them. But what happens next? A handslap, a fine that do
Re:Automated manufacturing (Score:4, Funny)
The main thing you don't understand is that people create jobs, not the other way around.
I don't know about that, I'm sure there have been quite a few(ahem...) jobs that have created people...
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The problem is that the concept of jobs here in the US is so politicized, real job growth isn't going anywhere, as long as one group believes big business can be completely independent (thought the bank crashes in 1929, the 1980s, and 2008 would teach that is a lie), and the other group believes that hammering on gun control, disparaging the police, or knee-jerk polarizing issues will actually do anything other than just dig both sides in deeper, rather than promote compromise. Marx was wrong, and Ayn Rand was wrong. Both sides need to deal with that.
The problem is that some people still believe that there are two sides represented in American politics, while both (R)s and (D)s work first and foremost for the corporations which spend the money to get them re-elected. And they do get re-elected, 95% of the time, although well over 70% of people say they would like change in government.
There are substantive differences between the parties, but none of them actually matter because both parties are being manipulated by money first and foremost.
Re:Automated manufacturing (Score:4, Interesting)
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Technicians are going to be needed to service the machines. Anyone who grew up in an area influenced by the car industry will tell you that. We all started training to be technicians and millwrights years ago.
Service revenues on automobiles are in the toilet because they're designed for much longer warranty periods today, and there are less mechanics than ever. Anyone familiar with the car industry will tell you that.
The trend in electronics is towards more modularity, and it won't be long before the robots are repairing one another with regularity.
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Hate to sound like a luddite, but what's a person to do for a job?
You sound like a Luddite. Employment is rising, not falling. We have been automating jobs out of existence for centuries, and living standards have risen, not fallen. Incomes have risen the most in countries that have automated the most. There is no sign that any of these trends have changed, much less reversed. Rising productivity does not cause poverty. It causes prosperity. In fact, it is the ONLY thing that causes prosperity.
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You sound like a Luddite. Employment is rising, not falling.
According to official numbers the Civilian Employment-Population Ratio for the US peaked in 2000 and has been trending downwards ever since. Were you talking about some other kind of employment?
There is PLENTY of valuable work to be done (Score:5, Insightful)
Haven't you heard? Manufacturing is coming back to America, bigtime. It's just coming back automated. Relatively few jobs are coming back with the manufacturing.
Hate to break it to you but manufacturing never left America. Ever. It's a popular meme to claim that the USA doesn't make anything anymore but it is not and never was ever true. The US manufacturing sector, by itself today if it were a country, would be one of the ten largest economies in the world by GDP. The only country with a manufacturing sector of similar size is China and by dollar value they are roughly the same size to within a percentage point or two. And China has only caught up in the last few years despite having 5X the population. China does a lot of the labor intensive [wikipedia.org] manufacturing and the US does a lot of the capital intensive [wikipedia.org] manufacturing. That proportion will change over time as wages change in both the US and China as well as in other places.
You are correct that the relatively proportion of jobs in certain types of manufacturing is going to fall similar to how it did for farming. But this is not a doomsday scenario. It means that labor pool is now available to do something else that previously was not possible. If we all still had to work on a farm then the internet would probably have never come about. If you use people to do what a robot can do, then you are necessarily wasting resources by not utilizing people to their fullest capability.
Hate to sound like a luddite, but what's a person to do for a job?
The exact same question has been asked at the start of every technology advancement and the answer is the same as it has always been. Something different. Probably something you are having a hard time even imagining right now. As an example you're complaining that we shouldn't have accounting software because it took labor and thus jobs out of accounting. Would you seriously argue that computers have eliminated jobs because we need fewer secretaries now? It's an absurd argument because it presumes that the amount of economically valuable work out there is fixed and not growing or growing too slowly.
Farming is automated, manufacturing is automated, even service industry jobs are becoming automated
Umm, there is PLENTY of valuable work that cannot be economically automated. I run a manufacturing company that does assembly work. There is NO automation that can economically replace what we do and none likely within my working lifetime. Not because the technology doesn't exist but because humans are more flexible and economic in plenty of circumstances. Automation is useful but the limits on it are economic rather than technical in most cases. If you need a small quantity of something produced, it is difficult or even impossible to economically automate that in most cases. Same with creative work. Same with complicated work. For automation to replace all people you will have to develop a robot or other automation that is as capable as a person AND less costly. We are no where close to that occurring.
Wages may not be inflated like they've gotten in the US in the last 50 years but that doesn't mean there won't be any work anymore. It just will be different than it was and some places (like the US) may experience a reversion to the mean on wages. I know that uncertainty is scary but the notion that automation is going to eliminate all jobs is just ridiculous.
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What are they, you say?
You mean I have to spell it out for you?
Ok then.
Sure, there are manufacturing jobs in the US, some that never went away, others that are new. Here is the catch, they employ a smaller amount of people, much, much smaller than they used to. These newer manufacturing jobs are usually of a technical nature, with much training involved and the innate need for e
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Maybe humanity will finally be motivated to figure out that mass economic stability and security comes from serving each other instead of rigidly serving the self, because serving others is enlightened self interest.
One can hope.
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Some time ago I researched long-term trends in employment by sector in the Netherlands. Employment in all sectors is declining except for few: entertainment, hospitaliy, (medical) care, "sales", automation, recycling. I suspect the latter two to go into decline sooner or later as well. As long as we manage to prevent extreme concentration of wealth with the owners of the automated production there shouldn't be a real problem; we're all going to entertain each other and care for each other and sell each othe
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Some farming is being done by migrant labor. But a good deal of farming is being done by GPS controlled tractors, auto-bailers, etc. My wife's family are farmers, and they farm 1000s of acres with less than a dozen people. Tell me that isn't automated.
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Re:What Will They Do... (Score:5, Insightful)
And what will all our fine corporate interests do when they run out of wage slaves?
I think you worry too much - I'm in the best part of Africa, the most progressive, the most modern, and even here the government can't even keep the lights on. Over here we just came out of a economy crippling 8-month strike (which was preceded by a 6 month strike). In December, due to cable-theft which the government does nothing about, our company ran on diesel generators for two full weeks (averaging 18l/hour).
Our workforce is mostly uneducated and they prefer it that way (seriously, they do). Our pass rate for high-school maths is around 10%. Our high school students rank close to last in maths and science. Our minister of education is on a mission to put religion into schools, as if that would alleviate the systemic problems in our educational system. Our populations is incredibly lazy and refuses to work. Their reasoning is mostly vindicated, as they keep voting for a government that takes from the imddle class and gives to their voter base.
We have roughly 5 million income tax payers supporting around 12 million welfare recipients. The aforementioned 5 million also pay for electricity while the 12 million get it for free. This ratio is only getting worse as time goes on. We have the least amount of corruption compared to any other African state, but we still have annual news about shady arms deals that line politicians pockets at the expense of the people, a president who, in his late 60's, is taking a sixth wife (that taxpayers have to support).
Our president has been found guilty by the public prosecutor of taking almost R300million from the public coffer for his private benefit, was the recipient of bribes in which the dodgy court found the other party guilty of giving the bribe to the president but refused to find the president guilty of accepting it, has been tried for rape (acquitted, though: he claimed it was consensual), believes that having a shower after sex will prevent him from getting HIV and is unable to read numbers with more than 5 digits (seriously, check youtube).
Multiple areas have to rely on cellphones, due to cable-theft affecting POTS lines (I'm in such an area), water routinely gets cut off due to not enough power to run pumping stations. The middle class (mentioned above) all pay for private security to guard their homes because the woefully underfunded and under-manned police force simply cannot keep up with the crime rate.
Yeah, I did mention that we are the best that Africa has to offer, right? Good luck to any company trying to set up manufacturing or processing facilities here - the population is so lazy, that even though we have a 25% unemployment rate (in practice it is higher, this low number is due to the way they count "unemployed") the only people who are willing to work as gardeners are from a neighbouring country.
The cherry on top? Your business could easily be nationalised if the president decides that the kickback is not high enough. Seriously, good luck with moving stuff from China to here. China has a well-earned reputation for being a nation of hard and industrious workers. They may steal ideas, but they still work more hours than everyone else. Your manufacturing facility is safe there. Our workers refuse to accept an double-inflation raise and strike for 8 months out of 12. Your manufacturing facility won't survive here - the automakers are now planning on moving out (they were the first to come here for the cheap labour).
Re:What Will They Do... (Score:4, Interesting)
What country are you talking about? South Africa?
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When he said "R300million" I assumed it was South African rand.
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It makes me wonder what Africa would be like today if it had remained under colonial administration but had been able to transition to majority local rule over a much longer time period.
I recently read a book called "38 days to Cape Town" about a north-south African road trip taken in the late 1970s. Most of Central Africa they passed through was marginally functional as a civilization, including nearly having to abandon their trip because they were unable to buy fuel at any price -- gasoline stations were
Re:What Will They Do... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you view this as an imperialist move by China as opposed to a western style company taking a risky bet, does that change things at all?
Recall that many Chinese "companies" are appendages of the Chinese government -- and sometimes, even the Chinese Military (acting with quasi-autonomy from the government itself).
So, if some fragile corrupt African government attempts to nationalize Chinese investments, there's a good chance that China will simply dispense with the problematic elements of said government in whatever way doesn't risk significant repercussions from other world powers. Given what China is willing to provoke between Taiwan and Japan -- two US allies with protection agreements -- I don't think China is going to lose any sleep if it needs to steamroll a few African governments. The US won't do anything about it, and neither will anyone else.
Finally, why are you still in SA? It sounds like a wretched mess. Turn off the lights on your way out....
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Yeah, I did mention that we are the best that Africa has to offer, right? Good luck to any company trying to set up manufacturing or processing facilities here - the population is so lazy, that even though we have a 25% unemployment rate (in practice it is higher, this low number is due to the way they count "unemployed") the only people who are willing to work as gardeners are from a neighbouring country.
A friend of mine offered me a job flying for Shell out of Nigeria...
They figured out a long time ago that they have to provide their own security, which is why they employ PMCs to provide their own security.
http://www.mercenaryjobs.org/p... [mercenaryjobs.org]
http://www.theguardian.com/bus... [theguardian.com]
Not only does Shell pay the Nigerian Military millions of dollars (which is really just bribe money), they also employ 1,200 private security.
Shell is spending over a third of a billion dollars a year on security just in Nigeria alone.
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Re:What Will They Do... (Score:4, Informative)
Racism masked as intelligent analysis. Colonialism/Apartheid and the viewing blacks as savages who are mentally inferior to whites is a big part of the reason they remain an underclass in South Africa.
That's what the stupid masses always say. You did know that I am not white, right? And FYI, the ruling class in SA is overwhelmingly black.
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And then, it's on to South and central America!
South and central America are ahead of Africa on this curve. Africa will be the last bastion of cheap labor IMHO.
"massively bloated" (Score:3)
Second, Hebei may simply be at a loss as to how to scale back businesses that they recognize have become massively bloated.
Simple: do nothing. Laissez faire is the appropriate strategy for something that isn't actually a problem. It's interesting how the instinct to meddle overcomes all residual common sense.
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My question is in 20 to 30 years when Africa transitions like China did what's the next high density, low cost labour force?
We can look at periods of time when we ran out of low cost labor, like the US did in the post-Second World War period.
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Some industries will move to wherever they can get the cheapest labor. Others will stick around after they have done a serious investment in an area.
I think the biggest problem is the idea of Ranking.
US #1, is China going to take our #1 spot.
That is really the wrong worry.
China is the size of the US it has 10x the population. China on paper should be able to beat the US handedly for #1 position. But what is it doing wrong where it isn't.
But instead of fighting for #1 spot (which often means trying to knock
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China is the size of the US it has 10x the population.
This is not correct. First, China has roughly 4.3 times the population of the US. Second, that ratio is dropping due to immigration to the US. Even in a world of population control or population die-offs the US has the advantage just because it's a nicer place to live and has more food production per unit population.
If the US were playing a long game rather than screwing up like it actually is, then it could be just as populous as China in a few centuries without any need for population control.
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Chinas one child policy has doomed it to a rapidly aging population, not too dissimilar from Japan.
They know this.
Also, they are a country where there is a larger percentage of men than women. China has big problems, much bigger than the US.
Due to the US allowing in migration from(you guessed it...) we have kept our "fecundity" fresh and our average age lower than almost all other industrialized nations. [theatlantic.com]
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Few companies can move to Africa (Score:5, Insightful)
Building a factory in most African countries is far too risky. Even if the wages were zero, you can't make a long term profit if the government nationalizes your factory. It's also not worth building anything in places where the government might decide to tax away or otherwise take the profits. Moving production to Africa won't be a trend until honest government prevails in Africa.
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Big problem is not nationalization, but a lack of infrastructure. No electricity, roads, internet, strong police presence, and educated workforce are problems. China as communist as it once was put in electricity, roads, educated workforce, police and strong government, etc.
It is more than just cheap labor folks
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not just that, China is building CITIES in Africa that are thus far vacant but for security patrols. I don't think Africans are intended to live in those cities...
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I'm fairly confident that a Chinese business might know a thing of two about working with a corrupt government.
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haha, the government of an African nation vs. the armed forces of China. Place your bets.
And for anyone who suggests even the USA can't handle foreign occupation, that's only because the USA is half-assed and merciful. The Chinese will do things brutal colonial Roman-style. for example one anti-chinese action will an entire city wiped out.
The real question is... (Score:2)
How will they maintain control when the economic party is over?
They already are tenuous in their control of China, regardless of what western media portrays.
I'm sure they are looking over their shoulders constantly and trying to figure out how to keep a Billion people from revolting...
The Two Chinas (Score:4, Interesting)
The Elite China has no soft corner for their own brethren from the interior. They would happily out source and drive the wages down even further if they could get a few more yuans. Exactly like our US corporate titans who would out off shore everything to increase their income, and keep the income off shore to reduce taxes. Neither of them have a shred of kindness to rest of their own countrymen. It is them who are looking for low wages across the globe. They are as shortsighted as the oil men who triggered the Iraq war in 2003 hoping to lock in the Iraq oil for themselves. They may be able to start something, but they may not be able to control it very well.
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you only point out what the purpose is of those deserted cities in Africa that China is building. I see some posts here imagining the Chinese will use African people and uplift them.....guess again, it's a kind of colonization, there will be Chinese in those cities getting a somewhat better wage than if they had stayed at home.
As for dealing with a government that tries to nationalize those factories, I'm betting on the ability of the armed forces of China to be able to whoop any and even all Africa governm
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Re:No African OT either.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Americans won't stand for "slave wages" in Africa.
Most Americans are unconcerned about the working conditions of the people who make their products. Even those who express concern are often using it as a cover to push for protectionist policies that hurt the very people they claim to be helping.
They would boycott anything "made in Africa" because they'd fear the workers are slaves.
Most bonded labor (slavery) occurs in agriculture. Manufacturing jobs almost always result in a huge improvement over rural poverty. Such a boycott would be harmful and counterproductive.
Re:No African OT either.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:No African OT either.... (Score:5, Informative)
tbh though, do we really want to outsource our food production?
You have that backwards. The west over produces food, and dumps the surpluses onto third world countries at subsidized prices. This helps urban people, who tend to be better off, but hurts poor rural farmers, who cannot compete with western mechanization, yet have no alternative markets.
Free trade in agriculture will mean that America/Europe can focus on crops that benefit from high levels of mechanization, like corn and soybeans, while poor countries can focus on labor intensive crops like strawberries and mangoes. Everybody wins. This has already happened with agricultural trade between America and Mexico, helping farmers and consumers on both sides of the border. It could happen in Africa as well.
Re:No African OT either.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Easy thing to say when you aren't the guy working 16 hours without a break making over-priced iShinies.
Yet, if you actually ask factory workers in poor countries what they want, one of their biggest desires is for LONGER HOURS. Many of them are rural migrants, often women, separated from their spouses and children. Their focus is on making as much money as possible, in the shortest time, so they can go back to their home village. They are not interested in TVs in the break room, spacious dormitories, or other things that YOU may think are important. Stop projecting your values and priorities onto people that you know nothing about.
Instead of looking at factory workers as unthinking drones, that need first-world do-gooders to decide what is best for them, perhaps you should consider what they have to say, about their own lives:
Do campaigns for “ethical supply chains” help workers? [economist.com]
The voices of China's workers [ted.com]
Re:No African OT either.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I expect they don't feel they can ask for more money per hour. They're left with only one option to earn more, which is to labor more.
This is what happens when there are a lot of jobs that don't require a whole lot of skill, or require skills that the employer can teach to nearly anyone, fairly quickly. All workers are replaceable, and there is no benefit to individually trying to make gains because one will just be let go. That's why unions came into being, because if everyone or nearly everyone was involved, then it's a lot harder for the employer to fire that vast a portion of the workforce without putting themselves out of business.
I'm not going to deny that unions have their problems too, but labor strife as business came into direct conflict with organized labor is why we have safer workplaces in the United States and overtime when exceeding forty hours for most physical labor jobs.
China is going through what the United States went through 80-150 years ago, and they're going through what the United States started going through heavily in the late eighties and nineties when outsourcing overseas started becoming commonplace. That's a tough spot.
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Another ignorant Westerner projecting her own values on a foreign society. Being paid "peanuts" in Western currency is actually quite a lot in Chinese yuan. It's certainly more than they could make back on the farm. Maybe we should actually talk to these people instead of assuming that we can hold opinions on their behalf?
Workers are mobile and they know it. Wages are up across the board in China, and not going down anytime soon. The workers will move across the street to a new factory at the drop of
Re:No African OT either...and NO rationalizations! (Score:4, Interesting)
> "it's OK for a Chinese factory worker" to work in what we could consider to be inhumane conditions
I work for a multinational, and when I go into one of our JV plants, they're mostly indistinguishable from conditions in our Canadian, US, and Mexican plants. The only real differences are the prevailing wages and social security system which is not typically considered part of the wage, and in China, it's a huge additional cost because it's not just retirement social security but things like housing, etc.
They don't work much overtime, as our production and sales are predictable. Instead there are multiple shifts (more jobs for more people).
Google- and Apple-style transportation is free. Lunch is free (and quite good). Families are together at night and weekends.
While there are property bubbles in some of the famous big cities, one can still temporarily purchase a home in much of China are very low cost compared to say, middle America. Food is cheap. Consumers goods are cheap. Health care is cheap.
Life is good for these people.
Re:No African OT either.... (Score:4, Informative)
they are paid peanuts.
A typical factory wage in Shenzhen is about 2500 Yuan per month. The direct exchange rate for that is about $300, but the PPP is more like $1000, because basics like food, rent and transportation are far less expensive. In a two income household, that is about equivalent to $24k in purchasing power. That is not rich, but certainly is not "peanuts". It is a decent middle class income.
Re:No African OT either.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:No African OT either.... (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that this used to be a stepping stone
Factory wages in China are rising by 10-20% per year. That is far faster than wages grew in the west during our industrial revolution. So a factory jobs is not only still a stepping stone to a better life, but more so than ever before. They are going from rural poverty to a middle class life in a single generation.
just a stage when a country is exploited by companies that can easily move to the next target.
Because Mozambique has the same supply chain efficiency and infrastructure as Guangzhou? Sure. Good luck with that.
Of course! (Score:3)
Or option B
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It would be a start for many people in Africa to draw a wage, any wage, rather than live as subsistence farmers. Yup, I've spent some time in Africa, I've seen how people live there, and the fact that its not at all like the begging adverts you see for charities on TV. The fact that its not a crisis for these people, its a way of life that is near to impossible for most to drag themselves out of. That's what makes it worse than those begging adverts.
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