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Foxconn: China's days as worlds factory are done

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cdev:
It should be noted that Foxconn is a Taiwanese company. Its chairman has been claiming that total automation, robotic manufacturing, etc, is the future, for a very long time. Thats best understood as labor arbitrage- behavior intended to, by fear, lower wages.

Also, they are milking other potential manufacturing locations for tax breaks.

All around the world, companies are shopping around for huge tax breaks, and binding instruments that deregulate laws of all kinds, and sometimes getting them.

But the deals rarely seem to work out well. In fact I have never heard of one of these tax break deals that worked out well, has anybody here?

Here in the US, 20 years ago it was stadiums. Lots of cities ended up building stadiums to allegedly create jobs, employ the chronically unemployed, attract business to economically distressed areas. Many of them turned out  to be financial disasters. Stadiums sit, occupying space that previously supported vibrant, if poor communities, in the middle of huge parking lots that rarely get filled. That money would have been better spent on education.


--- Quote from: CJay on August 27, 2020, 05:34:59 pm ---
--- Quote from: Bud on August 17, 2020, 10:28:34 pm ---
--- Quote ---Foxconn chairman Young Liu, according to Bloomberg,... boldly proclaimed that while China will continue to be a key location for Foxconn's factories, the country's "days as the world's factory are done."
--- End quote ---

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/12/foxconn-says-chinas-days-as-worlds-factory-done/

--- End quote ---

It just means Apple's money will go to Vietnam, Africa or whichever other emerging economy is cheap enough to keep them in profit they've become accustomed to, it would be more worrying if the manufacturing 'came home' because that means either they've been bribed with your taxes or they think your standard of living is falling (or can be forced) below the level of the workers in the country they're leaving.

China will continue on and maybe it'll move a little upmarket, maybe it won't.

Macrumours and Bloomberg aren't always right (same as many other news outlets) and often regurgitate press or politically motivated 'news' releases that turn out to be quite far from reality

--- End quote ---

Africa is what they are excited about now, because wages in some parts of Africa are literally the lowest in the entire world.

Many parts of China are in every way parts of the developed nations, with costs of living to match. Taken as a whole, its becoming a middle income nation.



For what its worth, businesses in China a few years ago were engaged in an incredible search for talented employees, and their websites were filled with information about the awards they had been given as great places to work, and how much they supported their employees' professional development, and *gasp* the raises they had given them. I don't know if this trend is continuing now,  but I hope it is.

Last I investigated this Chinese citizens were speaking up about the environment!

Last year in Wuhan, the city erupted in demonstrations about government plans to build a huge incinerator to burn garbage.

Quite in contrast to Modi's India, the self described "Back Office of the World" which is struggling with the demands of a ruling class that seems quite unwilling to share the gains with their workforce. many of whom still live under quite spartan conditions.

China has a growing middle class, while economists lament about India's missing middle class.

India is unlikely to become more than a limited market for many Western goods, in the near future, as they cant afford them.

Were it not for the WTO and its "rules based" system, countries could take factors like human rights, labor, and environmental issues into account when deciding what other countries to trade with.  Under the new global economic governance regime most things like that are basically forbidden.

bson:

--- Quote from: EEVblog on August 22, 2020, 12:29:09 pm ---Yes, and companies have also been moving manufacturing back to their own countries for years now. It even has it's own name, "onshoring". We've been talking about it for several years at least on The Amp Hour.

--- End quote ---
There's also the matter of China actively making an ass of itself in Australia and elsewhere.  Western businesses contract with Chinese manufacturers to make products they market and sell in the west, not in China, and with China's recent imperialist activities this is going to spell trouble when the hammer finally comes down.  The writing is on the wall, and it would be a huge problem not to have a plan B.

SilverSolder:

--- Quote from: bson on August 27, 2020, 08:40:06 pm ---
--- Quote from: EEVblog on August 22, 2020, 12:29:09 pm ---Yes, and companies have also been moving manufacturing back to their own countries for years now. It even has it's own name, "onshoring". We've been talking about it for several years at least on The Amp Hour.

--- End quote ---
There's also the matter of China actively making an ass of itself in Australia and elsewhere.  Western businesses contract with Chinese manufacturers to make products they market and sell in the west, not in China, and with China's recent imperialist activities this is going to spell trouble when the hammer finally comes down.  The writing is on the wall, and it would be a huge problem not to have a plan B.

--- End quote ---

I'm not convinced that China's "recent imperialist activities" makes it on to our purchasing manager's list of priorities.   I'll tell you what has made it on to the list:  Avoiding buying equipment that an American administration can render obsolete via a political decision, possibly because they feel they cannot compete with China, or whatever other reasons.  China will be pushed to make their own versions of, for example, chips they used to license from American companies.  The only losers in the long run might end up being those American companies...   what do you think?

cdev:
You can thank our President Clinton for the fact that now we cant, in economic terms.

Now countries can abuse their own people at will. Its no longer possible to do anything to them about it via trade.
All countries are deemed equal in every way. Corporations must give them all a "key" to all back doors if they are known to exist. They must be made available to all nations. All dictators are created equal.
 
In exchange, corporations get everything economic.


--- Quote from: blueskull on August 28, 2020, 01:15:07 am ---
--- Quote from: bson on August 27, 2020, 08:40:06 pm ---There's also the matter of China actively making an ass of itself in Australia and elsewhere.

--- End quote ---

If the West stops attempting to spread the cancer of Western idealism (I'm being very polite not to say democracy and freedom) to China, there wouldn't be problems,

China has its absolute sovereignty, and let's respect that or get mutually nuked.

--- End quote ---

I hope not!

coppice:

--- Quote from: cdev on August 27, 2020, 07:44:26 pm ---Here in the US, 20 years ago it was stadiums. Lots of cities ended up building stadiums to allegedly create jobs, employ the chronically unemployed, attract business to economically distressed areas. Many of them turned out  to be financial disasters. Stadiums sit, occupying space that previously supported vibrant, if poor communities, in the middle of huge parking lots that rarely get filled. That money would have been better spent on education.

--- End quote ---
Hopefully not to be spent on university education. This big priority in every US university seems to be to build a big stadium.

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