patrick.net

They took a sharp turn to Commie Town.

They were set up to be an economic power to be reckoned with.
They've got tons of housing stock sitting unused. They've got whole mega cities that sit mostly empty. Save for a few sporadic lit apartments in the night.

They could have set people up in those apartments with deferred payment. But most important thing get those cities occupied, and get the businesses there to service them and employ them. Cities that huge are self contained consumer enclaves. So many people Working and Spending money their middle class would have been something 1970's booming America would have been envious of.

Those Cities will be decrepit and crumbling now in less than ten years, and the major over crowded Cities and Hubs will be even bigger crisis with very poor displaced people with no hope.

Russia Today: Send your gold to Moscow. Much safer there!

HEYYOU says

Refusal to hand over Venezuelan gold means end of Britain as a financial center –

An interesting in question is, why these socialists/kleptocrats do not keep that gold (and their own money) in their own countries? Are they afraid that their "best and most fair" states may descend into anarchy due to their policies?

Comrade Maduro needs to get all of the gold out of Venezuela for safekeeping for the benefit of The People. He promises not to spend any of it.

LOL The Russians ate Mueller's homework.

"Honest Judge, we had 'em! We had evidence on all of 'em, they were going down!
The Russians! You know how they ARE! They hacked Us! AGAIN!

You couldn't write a story about more Chicken Shit Characters than the 13 Angry Democrat Witch Hunt against Trump.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/01/mueller-gets-triggered-over-twitter-troll-claiming-it-hacked-discovery-material-in-junk-russian-bot-case/

kt1652 says

Everyone knows Apple products are overpriced. The status thing can only last so long. Trade war doesn't help Apple. lol

The flip side is that China's market is deliberately underdeveloped and prices kept artificially low

Idk, that was the same argument the UAW levied again't Toyota, Datsun, Honda in the 70's.
I can tell you the cost of doing business is much lower in China. Techs like phones, EV, labor cost is not the big slice of cost. There is a lot of automation. Components, suppliers, skilled reliable vendors, JIT everything. Shenzhen is the technology manufacturing capital of the world. If you owned an Apple, MSolt, Sony, HP, it was built there. Things like factories, highways, bridges, etc. Speed means efficiency, time is money. Something we could learn from them. Tesla Super charger in middle of Beijing was completed in 8 days. High speed rail network thousands of miles, done in a few years.
I drive by an off ramp that Cal tran is widening by 1 lane. No new structure needed. It has been going for 4. Months and still not finished.

I'm enjoying all the points here, but I would say China is full of make work projects. The hinterland is full of empty cities, for example.

China has very expensive electricity costs and they will only rise with demand.

All those things are built there for one reason : Cheap labor, and China demands manufacturing process sharing from foreign companies.

China begins to exhibit signs of disorder and economic distress when it's annual GDP growth drops towards 6%. Imagine a flat year.

Tesla new gigafactory build schedule in Shaghai was deemed too agressive, like 2 years. Elon said, you're right. He cut it in half, lol.

OccasionalCortex says

The examples of Japan and the Soviet Union highlight three frequent mistakes: extrapolating from the recent past; assuming that a period of rapid economic growth will be indefinitely sustained; and exaggerating the benefits of centralised direction over those of economic and political competition. In the long run, the former is likely to become rigid and so brittle, while the latter is likely to display flexibility and so self-renewal.

This could be a point, but I would call this slightly optimistic.
On 1 side, China does have a large part private enterprise, ultra flexible. This is why they are not the soviet union.
On the other side, have a look at our calcified government gridlock. Not at all rigid and full of self-renewal!
No signs of a bunch of plutocrats clinging to their privileges.

And Europe... Ah! Europe! Her bright future attracts many believers!

Maybe there comes a point when self-renewal requires some destructive whirlwind of chaos. Maybe its unwise to avoid it for too long....

From Naked Capitalism - Yves here. In 2017, we wrote of Foxconn’s record of cheating on its plant deals and the fact that even if the Wisconsin agreement worked out as planned, the cost to the state per job created was so high as to be a giveaway. Sadly, things played out according to script.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/01/foxconn-major-con-backed-trump-promises-4-billion-subsidies-company-admits-factory-jobs-not-coming.html

From the comments section:

1. The point person for the state dealing with Foxconn learned about the change of plans from the Reuters report. Not a good sign.

2. Walker is trying to cover his ass by tweeting “no jobs, no tax credits.” This is literally true (if Foxconn hires NO ONE) but the tax credits are structured so that the cost to the state per job is substantially higher if employment is low. And at least a billion or so of public money is for eminent domain and new/expanded roads, which is sunk cost regardless.

3. The Reuters article says (paraphrasing) “the business environment has changed since we made the deal so of course the deal has to change.” Which is a pretty ballsy thing to say less than 2 years in to a 15-20 year deal, when it is not obvious that business conditions have changed in any meaningful way.

4. I think the state Repubs are correct when they say the problem is the new Dem Gov (by which they really mean the state’s voters, since the gov has only been in office for a couple weeks and not done anything yet). Had Walker won again, the Foxconn/Repub cabal could have continued scheming, hiding, lying, cheating, postponing, etc for the next several years. With this Gov, that is no longer possible.

I haven’t driven by there in a couple of months but last time I did, there was not much construction evident.

The jobs, the winning, the MAGA - when will it end ? Anyone seen or heard anything about those 1000s of job U.S. Steel is working on ?

From the article:

"Precipitous withdrawal from Syria would put our allies at risk and be detrimental to our allies in the region,” he added. "

This is the real issue. MIC under threat from Trump pulling troops home, starting with Syria.

He won’t pull out until the Mueller thing is resolved. He can’t afford to lose the Senate until that’s done.

MisterLearnToCode says

kt1652 says

Everyone knows Apple products are overpriced. The status thing can only last so long. Trade war doesn't help Apple. lol

The flip side is that China's market is deliberately underdeveloped and prices kept artificially low

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2018/09/27/the-1250-iphone-xs-max-costs-apple-450-to-make-nearly-a-200-profit-margin/#3e7cf9914966
Apple iPhone is a rather unconvincing example for your case.
First, Apple priced XS $1,250 / Cost to make $450 / Profit margin 200% / Profit $800.

That is lucrative, I worked in business computer hw tech, our margins were <10% at the product level. We made more money in support contracts.
So Apple makes more $ in profit per iPhone than Xiaomi’s retail price of $755. So do you think it is a bit over priced?
Which I am not complaining since I personally benefited from Apple’s dominance. I own ETF’s’ that hold oversize AAPL. From another pov, isn’t Apple just too greedy to make that much profit, just because it can?
Why didn’t Jim Cook do the right thing as you suggested, build them in the USA and make a few hundred $ less? It would still be good profit. He may have been fired for doing that, certainly WS would call for his head.

Both me and my wife own 4 year old Samsung Android. We replaced our batteries twice for $25 each and about 30 seconds sans tools. How’s that done in an iPhone? We don’t see the need to upgrade, what is it that a new phone can do that our old phone to worth parting $1k? Back to that $800 profit margin, it is more than a months pay for the average Chinese. Even though I can open my wallet for the iPhone, I won't.

Now, if a product is so lucratively profitable. Do you think it invites some serious competition, especially in their own market, while a brewing trade war provides the perfect storm for Xiaomi to grab some of it?
Chinese phones are the rising star in India if you read up on it. Again, Indians are poor but not crazy..

Re cheap Chinese labor cost, you really don’t understand tech product manufacturing. Take a look at this picture of an iPhone guts. It is a plastic case, glass, battery, some cables and a huge expensive highly integrated “motherboard”. All the cost is in the chips, board assembly, battery and glass. The motherboard is completely automated in assembly. No human, not even best Japanese ladies can solder those parts. In fact you do not want humans to touch most of those very expensive, fragile (before assembly) and easily damaged (ESD) parts. Labor cost is not the real reason. If it was, India, Vietnam, Malaysia, prob Africa too, would do a China on China.

I wouldn’t bet against China for a few reasons:
1) much higher than average population intelligence means they have many many more capable workers.
2) sure the government is Totalitarian, but they put smart commies in charge who understand economics rather than just party ideals. They’ve made a lot of good choices and managed their population and economic direction fairly wisely. On a civilization scale, their particular form of government might be more stable and efficient than ours. Certainly they aren’t 21 trillion in debt due to corrupt politicians.

3)they’re catching up fast technology wise, and due to exceed the USA shortly because we haven’t made any investment in space or highest tech. If China wins the space race, and it looks like it might, they’ll steadily draw ahead of us with respect to technology.

Re cheap Chinese labor cost, you really don’t understand tech product manufacturing. Take a look at this picture of an iPhone guts. It is a plastic case, glass, battery, some cables and a huge expensive highly integrated “motherboard”. All the cost is in the chips, board assembly, battery and glass. The motherboard is completely automated in assembly. No human, not even best Japanese ladies can solder those parts. In fact you do not want humans to touch most of those very expensive, fragile (before assembly) and easily damaged (ESD) parts. Labor cost is not the real reason. If it was, India, Vietnam, Malaysia, prob Africa too, would do a China on China.

Then why does the Foxcon factory that makes them need 500k employees? If the manufacture of iPhones was so automated, there is no reason Tim Cook would not build them in the US.

HeadSet says

Re cheap Chinese labor cost, you really don’t understand tech product manufacturing. Take a look at this picture of an iPhone guts. It is a plastic case, glass, battery, some cables and a huge expensive highly integrated “motherboard”. All the cost is in the chips, board assembly, battery and glass. The motherboard is completely automated in assembly. No human, not even best Japanese ladies can solder those parts. In fact you do not want humans to touch most of those very expensive, fragile (before assembly) and easily damaged (ESD) parts. Labor cost is not the real reason. If it was, India, Vietnam, Malaysia, prob Africa too, would do a China on China.

Then why does the Foxcon factory that makes them need 500k employees? If the manufacture of iPhones was so automated, there is no reason Tim Cook would not build them in the US.

The world is a big place, maybe too big for most to comprehend the immense scale of product demanded by 10 billion people. Being the No. 1 contract electronics maker in the world. Many are white box products that big names slap their own brand on. Apple alone sold 217 million iPhones in 2017. Go into a Best Buy, just look around, made in China. Multiply that by 10**n gadget stores in the world. They have 40,000 robots. you can bet on that going exponentially. That of course leads to a different social issue for another day.

Does Amazon make any of the product they sell? Why do they have so many employees and made Jeff B the richest man in the world? In fact, the more you make, the higher the need for automation. I think sometimes the scale of things are so large people just cannot wrap their brain around it. Like what is a Trillion dollars.

HeadSet says

... If the manufacture of iPhones was so automated, there is no reason Tim Cook would not build them in the US.

Already said, if Jim Cook proposed 10 years ago to build iPhones in the USA, Apple would prob fire him. AAPL would not have shot the moon. A different time, different regime. Today the mold is set.

If you read what I said, building leading edge tech product at scale is not something you just bring to Kansas. The surrounding infrastructure that China had built up to enable it to do it better than anyone today. The whole business model, supply chain, partnership, skilled labor, taxes, even cost of shipping components are as important as labor cost. You cannot today ramp this up in America and be competitive, so who is going to do it?

kt1652 says

leading edge tech product at scale is not something you just bring to Kansas. The surrounding infrastructure that China had built up to enable it to do it better than anyone today. The whole business model, supply chain, partnership, skilled labor, taxes, even cost of shipping components are as important as labor cost. You cannot today ramp this up in America and be competitive, so who is going to do it?

America won WW2 in good part because of its higher manufacturing capacity.
Are we saying China is a strategic competitor with 4 times the population, superior infrastructures, skills, manufacturing capabilities, IQs, and soon superior technology as well?

I'm amazed that Americans simultaneously take it for granted that they are on top of the world, and say stuff like that.

ThreeBays says

Chinese economy growth is slowing, but for Apple it's mostly about Trump Tariffs. Chinese are just moving to buy their own phones.

I think it has strictly nothing to do with Trump. There are 2 factors: first Chinese consumers spending collapsed on many products, and second, Apple priced itself out of reach.

HeadSet says

.

Then why does the Foxcon factory that makes them need 500k employees? If the manufacture of iPhones was so automated, there is no reason Tim Cook would not build them in the US.

From Vox:

'IHS Markit, the information and analytics firm that does “teardowns” of each iPhone to determine the cost of its components, estimated that the iPhone 8 plus contained about $8 in “manufacturing costs” — the price of assembly, including machines and manual labor.Sep 22, 2018'


The teeny light blue strip not visible on the x is the manufacturing cost.
I am going spend my time more productively.

kt1652 says

The teeny light blue strip not visible on the x is the manufacturing cost.
I am going spend my time more productively.

The bill of materials is not manufactured items?
Why separate the last assembly step and mark it "manufacturing"?

From the article:

You have the heart of the Trump-Russia investigation. The Russians, from Moscow, electronically steal the Democrat’s emails by copying them. They transmit the address where the emails are hidden to WikiLeaks in London. WikiLeaks takes the address of the stolen emails and transmits it to American media outlets. The Trump campaign uses the stolen emails to rob the United States of America of a free and fair election.

Seriously? That is so damn weak that only a deep partisan would spout that. The Trump campaign used info made public by someone else, and that stops a free and fair election? Info that showed how the DNC actually rigged an election, by the way.

HeadSet says

WikiLeaks takes the address of the stolen emails and transmits it to American media outlets. The Trump campaign uses the stolen emails to rob the United States of America of a free and fair election.

How can more information/better informed electorate result in "stolen elections"?

willywonka says

So you can't mention any Chinese rock groups then?

How about Mongolian? Musicstarts about one minute in.
www.youtube.com/embed/v4xZUr0BEfE

kt1652 says

Today the mold is set.

Time to start unsetting it then.

Stop blathering opinion pieces. Just post the global daily temperatures. Opinions are unnecessary just the data suffices. While 2018 was the 4th or 5th hottest year (downward trend) I bet January will not even record within the top 5. Yes it may still be a very warm year but the trend has been down the past years solidly defying the hockeystick curve. If you can find and link a site that has the daily raw global data for 2019 that would be a solid start of a data driven discussion. TIA

HEYYOU says

"a roughly 2-to-1 ratio. And that’s just in the U.S."

"Globally, the ratio of record highs to lows was about 20-to-1, with new all-time records in Namibia, Chile, and Reunion Island."

https://grist.org/article/despite-the-u-s-cold-snap-january-was-hot-hot-hot/

This is quite hypocritical for those pushing the "human CO2 emmissions MUST BE STOPPED" narrative, as those individuals usually say a set of temperature readings from a region on the Globe doesn't count towards Global anything...

If you READ the article, the cop told the guy he was driving fine. The ticket was literally just for eating and goes under a very broad “distracted driving” law.

Talk to your spouse for just a second, TICKET!!

I wonder how many people in Chicago are cursing global warming right now? I’ve waited too long for GW to deliver. Moving to Phoenix, because as usual, if you want something done, you have to do it yourself.

Fuck you GW, you’re all tease!

CNN runs 5 (FIVE) anti-Schultz headlines in one day:

Howard Schultz kicks off potential bid to unseat Trump… by attacking Democrats
Howard Schultz is objectively bad at Twitter
Howard Schultz deletes tweet about column that contained smears on Warren and Harris
Schultz deletes tweet of column smearing Dems
Cooper presses former Starbucks CEO about deleted tweet
See that? Three … three pieces covering the exact same story about Schultz’s tweet delete.

As far as that “scandal” goes, all Schultz did was tweet out a Pajamas Media column written by Roger Simon titled: “Howard Schultz Could Actually Win the Presidency.”
https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2019/02/01/nolte-cnn-published-five-hit-pieces-against-howard-schultz-in-one-day/

Typical. They condemn the five percent of good priests because of all the rest.

Wasn’t everyone already accused of that in America?

Nobody can proclaim Free Shit like I can proclaim Free Shit! Let the Free Shit Olympics begin!

HeadSet says

Ceffer says

Was he eating it out of his girl friend's tweetie?

It's good they don't ticket for cutting the cheese while driving, I'd be in big trouble.

Last time I "cut the cheese" while driving, the car behind me stalled out.

Lucky it didn't explode.

just_dregalicious says

I use an electric shaver every morning on my way into work. Been doing so for over a quarter century. Time saver!

Me too. One time, I dropped it in my coffee because of a lady putting on lipstick in the mirror while talking on the phone drifted into my lane.

I must say I feel a little criminal eating a Cheese Burger and driving.

If a Cop were to pull up next to me the last thing I would go and do is take a big ole chomp out of a quarter pounder, whilst driving my car with no seatbelt and my car reaking from the hit off the bowl I took at some point earlier.

I'll say it again, people have lost the Art of being on the Down Low.

Can't even come close to the hatchet job the conservative pundits did on Trump when he folded on the "wall".

Kakistocracy says

Can't even come close to the hatchet job the conservative pundits did on Trump when he folded on the "wall".

All I remember is Coulter whinging as usual.

I do note the government is only funded until later this Month, and that we are hearing more and more about militarizing the border as a national security issue.

you mean President Coulter ?