China Wants To Be a Top 10 Nation For Automation By Putting More Robots In Its Factories (reuters.com) 141
An anonymous reader shares a Reuters report: China is aiming for a top-10 ranking in automation for its industries by 2020 by putting more robots in its factories, the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) said. China's push to modernize its manufacturing with robotics is partly a response to labor shortages and fast-rising wages. But the world's second-largest economy still has far lower robot penetration than other big industrialized economies -- just 36 per 10,000 manufacturing workers in 2015, ranking it 28th among the world's most automated nations. By 2020, it aims to boost penetration to 150 per 10,000 workers, IFR said in a statement, citing Wang Ruixiang, President of the China Machinery Industry Federation. To help reach that goal, China aims for sales of 100,000 domestically produced industrial robots a year by 2020, up 49 percent compared with last year, the IFR said in a statement at an industry summit in Shanghai, where the Chinese federation's chief was speaking.
Kicking millions of Chinese out of jobs... (Score:1)
What could possibly go wrong?
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More to the point. Would it be economically feasible. In the US we automate because the costs of Automation is less than labor. However in China Labor is much cheaper. Going towards automation may put China in an economic disadvantage.
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Part of the cost of automation being less than labor is you create unemployment. This is fine--it's how progress works--and the displaced labor creates a gap between prior cost and new cost, which eventually leads to lower prices (prices don't keep with inflation, in part because it's impossible to hold all prices at the same buying-power equivalent in an economy where the relative price of everything constantly shifts thanks to population expansion, money supply increase, and productivity gains all inter
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It's possible, if the unemployment is high enough, that automation might force China to flirt with the concept of communism.
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In the US we automate because the costs of Automation is less than labor. However in China Labor is much cheaper.
The cost of Chinese labor is rising rapidly. The cost of automation is falling even more rapidly.
Going towards automation may put China in an economic disadvantage.
It puts them at a cost disadvantage against America and Europe. But it helps them against Vietnam and India.
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However in China Labor is much cheaper.
Not anymore. It's no longer cheaper to ship products on the ocean as it was before. All those up and coming workers are expecting better pay and benefits to support a middle income lifestyle. China need automation because labor is no longer cheaper.
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More to the point. Would it be economically feasible. In the US we automate because the costs of Automation is less than labor. However in China Labor is much cheaper. Going towards automation may put China in an economic disadvantage.
Due to its "One Child Policy" China has a rapidly aging and soon to be declining population. To compound the problem it also has a poor Health Care System and Horrible Environmental Pollution problems that leave much of its aging work-force with chronic and untreated health conditions and diminished productivity. In addition most of its untapped human-resources are rural Subsistence Farmers with no Experience and minimal Education. China's attempt to move from an export based Industrial Economy into a Marke
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Due to its "One Child Policy" China has a rapidly aging and soon to be declining population.
Well, that's easily solved: just do as Europe did and import millions of unlettered muslims. We're already enjoying great benefits here in Europe in such diverse areas as population reduction (with deadly attacks on a weekly basis), elimination of our freedoms, and of course cultural genocide!
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Well, that's easily solved: just do as Europe did and import millions of unlettered muslims. We're already enjoying great benefits here in Europe in such diverse areas as population reduction (with deadly attacks on a weekly basis), elimination of our freedoms, and of course cultural genocide!
Since Europe doesn't have the manpower or financial resources to maintain the kind of "watch" they really need to keep a lid on their recent immigrant population, they will resort to using more and more "digital invasiveness", which is a cheaper and easier way of dealing with it.
In other words, Europe, like the US and other First World countries will become more and more police-state like to deal with the imagined and real threat from those populations, of which a very, very small number are actually any
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That is the real reason why George Soros deliberately engineered the migrant "crisis". For control and profit.
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Due to its "One Child Policy" China has a rapidly aging and soon to be declining population.
Which is likely why it was changed to the "Two Child Policy" in January.
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It might not make sense at the present but you have to look at decades from now were most of the Western nations would have automated and will produce cheap crap themselves instead of importing them from China.
But it still doesn't make sense at present. And my bet is that in the future, those Western nations will develop that newer automation and then build and deploy it in China because that's where the world's industrial base will be.
Industrial base is mobile (Score:2)
It might not make sense at the present but you have to look at decades from now were most of the Western nations would have automated and will produce cheap crap themselves instead of importing them from China.
But it still doesn't make sense at present. And my bet is that in the future, those Western nations will develop that newer automation and then build and deploy it in China because that's where the world's industrial base will be.
Recent history has shown us that an industrial base is quite mobile. Provide manufacturers an incentive to move that is also approved/tolerated by consumers and the base will move. What may keep manufacturing in China is the "engineered" exchange rate that make everything available at a 25-30% discount.
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The world's industrial base will indeed be in China due to the complete lack of (enforced) environmental regulations. The First World can't compete with that.
Automation won't keep manufacturing in China (Score:2)
It might not make sense at the present but you have to look at decades from now were most of the Western nations would have automated and will produce cheap crap themselves instead of importing them from China.
Automation won't keep manufacturing in China, maintaining parity with the west won't do it. Outsourcing is a royal PITA and there are many problems. There has to be a huge saving to offset the overhead and inefficiencies of outsourcing to make it economical. A wage gap was once part of the "savings" but that is shrinking and robots won't offer much savings either.
The other "savings" is basically that everything sold in China is at a 25-30% discount due to the "engineering" of the exchange rate. This may
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These days, China has substantial value as a consumer. It makes sense to keep some (but not all) of your manufacturing where you have a billion consumers.
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These days, China has substantial value as a consumer. It makes sense to keep some (but not all) of your manufacturing where you have a billion consumers.
Seriously, that has been proven false decade after decade after decade for over a century now. Perhaps two centuries. Look at jet engines. Western manufacturers were enticed to "share" technology and manufacturing techniques to get a part of the Chinese market. And now:
"China's cabinet may soon approve an aircraft engine development program that will require investment of at least 100 billion yuan ($16 billion), state-run Xinhua news agency quoted unidentified industry sources as saying. China is determ
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Soylent Green has to come from somewhere...
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That's barely a statistical error in China.
If the female deficit was even spread through all ages, then it would be about 2%, which would be no big deal. But it is concentrated among the young, where it exceeds 10% in many areas. That is socially destabilizing. Many Chinese social media comments made about the recent atoll dispute with the Philippines are shockingly jingoistic, calling for war to seize land and defend China's "honor". I doubt if those comments are coming from guys with families or even GFs.
Re: sure glad they don't have nukes (Score:2)
I doubt if those comments are coming from guys with families or even GFs.
Not where they're coming from but rather who they're aimed at.
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God, in His infinite wisdom, gave them three holes for a reason.
--
Todd Akin
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refactoring period
I'm not sure if this is a typo or simply a statement specifically about developers' sexual habits?
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Seriously? Men have like a 2 hour refactoring period
Citation needed. Is that really a "normal" timeframe? I only have my own frame of reference of ~20-30 minutes, sometimes less if I'm REALLY attracted to the woman.
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I'd be shocked if their internet commenters weren't saying that. You don't have to read far on American news sites to find commenters who want to nuke the middle east or the like.
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s/go somewhere/shove it in something/
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Already solved: the pollution will change their hormones and turn them gay.
Jobs... (Score:3)
And yet Trump keeps telling his rubes that jobs are coming back. They are not coming back. Workers will be replaced by robots. How he's going to force companies to manufacture in the USA without adding legislation (because he said he would reduce legislation against corporations) is beyond me...
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You're supposed to cheer and chant, not listen and think.
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> How he's going to force companies to manufacture in the USA without adding legislation (because he said he would reduce legislation against corporations) is beyond me...
Import tariffs and tax breaks.
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Yes, although there are a few things that are the responsibility of the legislature that can, if the stars align, be usurped by the executive. The Presidency has been becoming more and more powerful over the years. There are tricks that can be used to apply a veneer of legality to what is not strictly legal, although you need popular support for that sort of thing to work.
Of course, Trump is trying to generate an air of urgency around his campaign. We're in decline, we're under seige. New ideas are need
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This is what Madison meant when he referred to "parchment barriers." The people of the United States are humiliating themselves and their ancestors by prostrating before the Christ-like executive who will deliver them jobs, hope, free college degrees, and ponies, too! A republic and its constitution are only as strong as the citizens who uphold it.
In a way, it's appropriate that the republic's come to this, as the very monolithic institutions that the "Progressives" and liberals built throughout the 20th ce
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And yet Trump keeps telling his rubes that jobs are coming back. They are not coming back. Workers will be replaced by robots.
There are barely more manufacturing jobs in the US than there are farming jobs. Those aren't the jobs people care about - we're a service economy now. Automation threatens to displace service workers the way it already has manufacturing workers - but that's far enough out that neither Trump nor his supporters are complaining about it.
OTOH, service jobs (especially low-skilled) are being lost to lost to recent immigrants, and that's an immediate problem that a president can do something about. That's real
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He will "create" jobs by causing war and chaos.
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When he does it it's not legislation. It's taking the necessary actions to make America great again.
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And yet Trump keeps telling his rubes that jobs are coming back. They are not coming back. Workers will be replaced by robots.
Germany shows that it is not that bad, they have been heavily into automation for a while. Some different jobs are created, a lot of welders lost but a few electrical technicians added sort of thing. Economically speaking, robots or not the money is still being spent in the country and benefitting the country in various indirect ways. As opposed to outsourcing where all the indirect benefits go overseas.
How he's going to force companies to manufacture in the USA without adding legislation (because he said he would reduce legislation against corporations) is beyond me...
I think he said he would introduce some sort of tariff scheme when a trading partner's markets are not "o
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Germany shows that it is not that bad, they have been heavily into automation for a while
Yes but Germany is part of the harmonised trade system of the EU, and it is just as open to Chinese imports as the United States.
Germany percent of workers involved in manufacturing has been going down [stlouisfed.org] of course.
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Trump's opposition to globalism is wise. (Score:2)
What says that globalism, as practiced & supported by his opposition, is inevitable? The fear of Trump shows that jobs can come back with his kind of citizen-first policies.
Those people who you call "rubes" are wiser for rejecting your clerisy - as the country has been worse for blindly accepting globalism. Citizens have rejected the false promises, especially those centering around trade, as they have only seen harm.
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Typical. Those who shame others for generalizations and stereotypes often commit those same actions in the same sentence..
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I think you are right. But, as a devil's advocate, trade policy is not legislation. So maybe in Trump's bloviating buffoon mind he thinks he can raise the import duty / tariffs sky high as protectionism to force jobs to come back. Only an idiot would think that - but then the misogynist xenophobe racist divisive psychopathic serial liar Trump is sort of an idiot.
Typical. Those who shame others for generalizations and stereotypes often commit those same actions in the same sentence..
...but not today!
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So maybe in Trump's bloviating buffoon mind he thinks he can raise the import duty / tariffs sky high as protectionism to force jobs to come back.
The US has import tariffs on around 12,000 items already, many of which are there to keep companies in the US in business. Paperclips have a 127% import tax. Which is why nearly all of them sold in the US are made in the US. Peanuts are taxed between 130% and 160% Tobacco has a 350% import tax. Those are products that tariffs have successfully kept producers in the US in business.
The president, in 2011, tried to keep tire manufacturing in the US by raising the tariff on Chinese made tires to 35%. But all
More of a protect an entire industrial base thing (Score:2)
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Such a reciprocal system needs to take into account that one party is a lot poorer than the other. The current system of mostly free trade helps those poorer countries become a lot less poor. I think you need to do better than that.
Who says that can not be a consideration? Don't naively think reciprocal means "dollars", note that my post mentions "barriers" not "balance of trade" (i.e. dollars).
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Don't naively think reciprocal means "dollars", note that my post mentions "barriers" not "balance of trade" (i.e. dollars).
I was naively thinking this was a selfish and futile attempt to protect developed world labor from reality. You know, I still think that is the case. The developed world doesn't need additional barriers, it needs economically healthier societies that among other things treat their employers better.
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Don't naively think reciprocal means "dollars", note that my post mentions "barriers" not "balance of trade" (i.e. dollars).
I was naively thinking this was a selfish and futile attempt to protect developed world labor from reality. You know, I still think that is the case. The developed world doesn't need additional barriers, it needs economically healthier societies that among other things treat their employers better.
Again, you display a reading comprehension problem, arguing against a policy not being suggested. Again, from my original post: "some sort of reciprocal system seems to be needed. On a per nation basis low barriers to trade in both directions, high barriers to trade in both directions, but not low barriers in one direction and high barriers in the other."
Clues: (1) per nation basis (2) same level of barriers in both directions, i.e. "reciprocal".
Your UCLA revisionism precedes you. (Score:2)
How about not blindly following the UCLA revisionism of the Great Depression?
aha (Score:3)
Re:aha (Score:4, Insightful)
China has a plan. They know that automation is both inevitable and also desirable (consistent quality, low cost, high end) and rather than just let their citizens be screwed by it they plan on transitioning them to service jobs.
Universal basic income? (Score:2, Interesting)
The challenge with automation is what to do with the displaced workers. In Western societies, expectations for quality of life and income levels are already established as fairly high, which complicates discussions of replacing employment with a universal basic income. If you are faced with the transition from employment with a decent standard of living, to a UBI covering only the bare necessities of life, that doesn't look so attractive. While urban China is seeing the same trend, rural China not so much,
Universal health care and low cost education (Score:3)
Universal health care and low cost education are needed in the USA.
and we need to get rid of the 2/4/6 year piece of paper education that we have here.
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Universal health care and low cost education are needed in the USA.
Low cost health care and universal education are needed in the USA. There. Fixed it for you. What's the point of cheap college education for people who fail to learn much during free public school education? And what's the point of universal coverage if there aren't enough doctors to provide the care?
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It would be ironic if "communist" (in almost no sense of the word) China managed to pull off a UBI, but would also offer huge propaganda benefits for the Chinese Communist Party, and Chinese nationalism in general (a potent and growing force). For that reason alone I would not be surprised if the government is thinking along those lines.
You just made the best point in this whole discussion, and you are right on the money.
The CCP is thinking exactly that: when less and less of their population actually works(and we all know its only a matter of time) they will be ahead of the curve in implementing what we "here in the West" call UBI.
In a "communist" country like China, it will be called something quite different, and they will probably have it fine tuned and working great by the time they really need to implement it.
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China has a plan. They know that automation is both inevitable and also desirable (consistent quality, low cost, high end) and rather than just let their citizens be screwed by it they plan on transitioning them to service jobs.
If you insist that everyone have jobs, at some point someone has to get paid for making something. You can't have a service job if nobody has money to buy your services.
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Yes.. they also use those edicts to violate human rights on a regular basis.
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Automation is what you do when machines are cheaper than people
How do you know? Cheapness comes in many forms, labour costs is one of them, but number of units produced per sqm of factory floor is another, cost of rework is another too.
If human labour is so cheap then why did Foxconn recently say they've automated away 60000 jobs? Not cut back, not reduced because they missed profit targets, but automated away because it's cheaper and produces a more consistent product.
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If human labour is so cheap then why did Foxconn recently say they've automated away 60000 jobs?
A classic example of how to make an argument seem like it addresses a point, while in fact it just makes an entirely different point, is to counter an argument which draws a comparison between 2 values with an argument which talks about one absolute value; or the other way around -- to counter a point about an absolute value with an argument about a comparative value.
I said automation is what you do when machines are cheaper than people. You countered that "Foxconn recently say they've automated away 6000
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Actually it's more of an example of how you thought I addressed the WRONG point where as in fact I was addressing your entire post.
Automation to reduce rework costs, reduce floor space expanding production, etc addressed the first part which was aimed at the whole "automation is what you do when machines are cheaper than people". This assertion is a load of crap and we automate a lot of things for very expensive reasons.
And the second part "Foxconn recently say they've automated away 60000 jobs" was aimed a
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Warning signs of Sentience (Score:2)
Watch out If any of the robots build themselves legs so they can climb to the top of the factory and jump off. They may have become sentient.
They still have almost 500 million farmers (Score:1)
Who is going to buy all this stuff if they don't have jobs?
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They're in the equivalent of the industrial revolution, using lots and lots of unskilled labor migrating off of farms into cities to do menial and dangerous jobs. The robots will replace some of them but not all of them. We're also in an era very different from the industrial revolution where lots of manufacturing can not be done by humans as the parts are too small to work with and the tolerances too demanding.
Jobs vs. purchasing power (Score:3, Insightful)
Who is going to buy all this stuff if they don't have jobs?
And there lies the heart of the problem: purchasing power is coupled to having a job.
As technology marches forward, that coupling has to be let go. Or at least loosened. The majority of the population needs to have some purchasing power even if there's no job for them. Think basic income [wikipedia.org].
The alternative: (almost) everything automated, production equipment (including robots) in the hands of a few corporations & the billionaires at their top, with the rest of the population jobless / out of money (an
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There will always be jobs, at least until the Singularity. This is just the Nth automation transition since the Industrial Revolution begun. It's no more (or less!) scary than any of them.
The disaster you're predicting was predicted over and over throughout history, and it's just as wrong this time.
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Past trends/patterns are not necessarily future trends/patterns.
One thing that is different is that automation in the past mostly enabled people to do more, NOT replace them. Power tools and tractors still had a human operator. Second, "office work" (AKA "service econo
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Past trends/patterns are not necessarily future trends/patterns.
No, but they're the best, sometimes only, evidence we have.
One thing that is different is that automation in the past mostly enabled people to do more, NOT replace them.
Nope. A great many professions have disappeared, or nearly so, over the centuries.
Can YOU see it? The "New Thing" wasn't so hidden in the past.
Everything's obvious in hindsight, but no one saw (or very few) what was coming, jobwise, until we were well into ramping up those new jobs.
The only possibility I see right now is the "customization economy" where people get customized cars, landscaping, kitchens, etc.
Customization will take off in areas where the base good both becomes nearly free due to automation, and where it works as a social status signal. Moving from "owning X confers status" to "your customization of X confers status, since everyone can own one now" is the one obvious trend. Heck, that's already most of fashion.
I see "Helicopter Money" (HM) theory as one possible solution.
"And we all had plenty of money, but there was nothing that money could buy". More money without producing more goods and services doesn't really achieve anything.
We also have rotting infrastructure that needs repair, but no means to fund it.
We certainly have the means to improve it, we just lack the will. The vast majority of state and local taxes these days goes to pension plan funding. Those money helicopters seems to hover over people the government likes - funny how that works.
It may take a combination of HM, taxing the rich, socialism, and public works to crack this puzzle.
That puzzle was cracked by capitalism every previous time, but this time is different because ... well, apparently, because you want free money.
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Do you have any evidence of this? When cars replaced horses, automobiles presented manufacture, repair, and refueling jobs almost immediately. It's true horse experts probably fell on bad times, but in general, new car-related jobs were already appearing and booming.
When factories started disappearing overseas in the late 1970's, the term "service economy" was coined fo
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Do you have any evidence of this? When cars replaced horses, automobiles presented manufacture, repair, and refueling jobs almost immediately.
Car-related jobs did very little to replace horse-related jobs at first (number-wise). It was only after cars had been around for quite some time that Ford made them cheap enough that more people could own cars than previously owned horses that job replacement started to become meaningful.
Manufacturing brought product after product into the purchasing ability of common man that he either could never have afforded, or only afforded for the head of the household.
That's been the trend. The new jobs are in st
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Perhaps so, but that's a different issue. I'm talking about jobs and the general economy.
Japan has not directly tried HM.
Demand for money? Who's talking about demand for money?
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And there lies the heart of the problem: purchasing power is coupled to having a job.
As technology marches forward, that coupling has to be let go. Or at least loosened. The majority of the population needs to have some purchasing power even if there's no job for them. Think basic income.
Or we could create more jobs. I'd take concerns like yours seriously, if we weren't strangling employment in the developed world, and if the rest of the world, including China, showed similar problems. Instead, what we see is massive increase in productive employment throughout the rest of the world and a really hostile environment to employment in the developed world. Maybe we should go with what works?
The alternative: (almost) everything automated, production equipment (including robots) in the hands of a few corporations & the billionaires at their top, with the rest of the population jobless / out of money (and in the extreme case: out of housing or food). Great recipe for say, a nice little civil war. As it has been several times in history.
And once again, we have the threats. Your approach isn't working. The laws protecting developed world lab
of all countries... (Score:2)
China has an endless supply of people that will work for next to nothing. You'd think they would be the last ones to be looking into robots.
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As China becomes more wealthy, the workers request higher pay.
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China has an endless supply of people that will work for next to nothing. You'd think they would be the last ones to be looking into robots.
Labor force doesn't increase productivity, capital does.
Take 10,000 workers and they still could not make a single microprocessor without the capital equipment to grow silicon crystals, photolithography, wafer handling in clean rooms, etc.
why china? (Score:1)
Forward Thinking with a hint of Xenophobia (Score:1)
For most basic manufacturing jobs cheap labor can't compete with good automation.
why use china robo factory when you can do the sam (Score:3)
why use china robo factory when you can do the same in the USA with quicker and cheaper shipping + less risk of the 3rd shift making cheap knock offs.
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Carry on...
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why use china robo factory when you can do the same in the USA with quicker and cheaper shipping + less risk of the 3rd shift making cheap knock offs.
Because in the USA you can't simply dump your waste in the stream behind the factory, power costs half a much, and there's far less regulation required to build such a factory.
Now what? (Score:1)
Seems to suit their mindset (Score:2)
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Greed is not a trait uniquely possessed by Chinese business people, you racist.
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He mentioned Chinese businessmen and government exploiting Chinese workers.
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racist
Fuck you. This has nothing to do with race, it has EVERYTHING to do with China's human rights record and news stories EVERYONE (except you apparently) have been reading for YEARS about how workers are treated in China. So how about you shut the fuck up, asshole?
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They'll stay home and do IT/programming for US companies. Since it's not a "good", it won't be affected by tariffs
And no immigration issues..
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Um, what kind of robots are these?
Penetration robots, obviously.
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Club fed has that.
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$30k/lifetime + maintenance + breakdown downtime + parts + reconfigure time / costs for changes in work.