[ng12]

I don't understand why globalism rarely, if ever, factors into the debate. It boggles my mind that if I walk down to the drug store to buy a toothbrush that toothbrush was likely made in a Chinese factory, shipped across the Pacific ocean in a diesel-spewing container ship, and then driven a good thousand miles in an 18-wheeler. It seems like a tremendous waste of energy for something that could be made locally for cheap.

[skummetmaelk]

Here you seem to be blaming globalism for failing to account for the true price of a product. The product should be cheaper if made locally because transport costs are reduced. At the moment transport is extremely cheap because there is no significant cost to producing emissions. If appropriate carbon taxes were added you would see such products being made more locally.

[ng12]

> Here you seem to be blaming globalism for failing to account for the true price of a product.

Fair, but in my mind this is why globalism is a thing -- because it doesn't account for the exploitation of human labor and lack of regulation. If it did, there would be no reason to ship a few dollars of plastic from China to the USA.

[DubiousPusher]

I think you're right. Our current form of global trade can only exist by exploiting a kind of lawlessness that comes from being able to distribute owns company beneficially across uncoordinated governmental regions.

[mrmanner]

In a way it's true that we transport things too much - but container ships are extremely efficient compared to almost all other means of transportation. The thousand miles in the 18-wheeler is probably a far larger part of the transportation emissions than the container ship from China.

So it might be more efficient to make a large investment in the American railroad network and start removing trucks from the road, than to start making toothbrushes in the US.

[filleokus]

Container ships are tremendously energy efficient, around 30 gram per tonne-km.

Some back of the envelope math:

- Distance China to US East Coast ≈ 10 000 km

- Weight of 1 toothbrush = 10 gram = 0.0001 tonne

30 g * 10 000 km * 0.0001 tonne = 30 gram of Co2

30 gram of Co2 is the amount of Co2 emissions from ≈ 100 meter of travel with an average car.

Of course there is secondary land transport from the port etc. But even though the sea shipping industry is one of the biggest Co2 emitters (not to speak of other nasty stuff [0]), it's still incredibly energy efficient.

[0]: You saying the ships are "diesel-spewing" is actually doing the ships a favour, it's usually heavy fuel oil.

[axaxs]

To be completely fair, it's not like they ran a ship from China just to bring your toothbrush. It's of course with thousands of other items, lowering the total cost per item for shipping. And these costs are still cheaper than making it locally, someone deemed. Though you do bring up the real overall solution, making gas/fossil fuels much much more expensive. Not as a trade measure, though that may be a side effect, but to keep people from burning it so freely.

[hackeraccount]

I think I read somewhere that with containerization the easiest assumption is that shipping is a zero cost activity.

[irrational]

How could it be made locally for cheap? Who is going to pay to build the local factories for everything your local drug store stocks (not to mention all the other local stores)? Who is going to work in all of those factories for cheap? Wont all of those thousands of local toothbrush factories worldwide pollute even more than a single toothbrush factory worldwide?

[ng12]

There are plenty of American toothbrush manufacturers which already compete on price (I use Preserve, made from recycled material in America for $3). It's mostly the big guys (Colgate + OralB) who are trying to maximize profit by outsourcing to China.

> Who is going to pay to build the local factories for everything your local drug store stocks

The manufacturer is going to pay for it by selling their products to drug stores.

> Wont all of those thousands of local toothbrush factories worldwide pollute even more than a single toothbrush factory worldwide?

How so? Even if there was a single manufactory in Oklahoma it could serve the entire country at a fraction of the environmental cost.

[hackeraccount]

What's the margin on making toothbrushes? If you have a pile of money and you want the best return is it really going to be on a toothbrush factory in the U.S.? I have no idea what the answer to those questions are but it seems like "not much" and "something else."

[ng12]

What's the argument -- that if China stopped making toothbrushes we would stop buying them? A US factory might struggle to compete with a Chinese factory on price, but that's exactly my point. Global capitalism does not account for the human cost and environmental cost necessary to make the Chinese factory cheaper.

[hackeraccount]

How cheap can it be made locally? When you consider that try and take in mind comparative advantage.

I understand that price doesn't take externalities into effect. That said price is the best way we have to allocate resources - it conveys that information better then any other tool we have. If price indicates to people that toothbrushes should be made in China and shipped to the U.S. then I tend to think that's probably the most efficient way to do it.