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umm, no. to all of that. the mentality is that the reason we have china producing our crap vanished a long time ago, and the only reason we're still using them is because change has a high initial cost. they don't make high-tech complex things. they take our design and put up a factory to stamp it our. or they used to. now they tend to outsource it to lesser countries and collect their middle-man fee. what you are talking about is short term pain that goes away in a year as the factory in china moves to a factory in india, and the supply cost of an iphone goes up. after that, it goes way down, because at this point, china is actually no longer cheap. we don't need to 'disempower' china -who gives a crap about their power. we, 'the buyer' don't need to think about them, 'the seller.' we go to a different store, which results in short term supply costs, and long-term savings. the power they have is they are a market. they can cut our companies out of that market. worked out great for the ussr. where i lived. we had 2 pulse dial phones. because no tone dial, and no call waiting. and no answering machine. in 1991. because the ussr closed that market to western companies. let me ask you -how much do western companies care about that market, with chinese buying stuff from an american company, that was made in china? my wife is chinese. they don't buy it. they buy some local cheap fake ripoff. and the rich people who get that iphone? they'll still get it, as a status symbol, and either import it, or buy it overseas. apple still sold them one. except now it was made in india. and short supply chains are not good. comparative advantage is good. a town that makes screws is good, and it makes them more efficiently, located near an iron mine. a town that makes glass is good -located near a lot of sand. shipping screws around from one large factory is a lot better than having to ship iron to fifty small screw factories, each of which is not running at optimal output, since demand varies. demand varies a lot less if you're making screws for 50 different industries, instead of for a microwave only. same reason mutual funds are a thing. the reason china seems efficient is nine of the true cost is ever evident. it's all fake, it's all regulated by the government. chinese solar panels are a great example. cheap, not due to that efficient 'solar panel town.' because they lose money on each one. instead of disempowering china, what we need is to focus on empowering ourselves for long-term cheaper stuff, and take that initial short-term hit on higher supply prices while we move production. and the tarrifs, the bans, and pissing off china with moves like in the article, so they start treating our companies like crap, is exactly the way to accomplish that. as far as our farmers selling their soybeans? demand goes down, plant something else. |