General > General Technical Chat
Foxconn: China's days as worlds factory are done
cdev:
Why do businesses farm out their various processes all around the world? Well, it keeps coming back to wages.
The difference in wages can be astronomical. And that effects costs as well .
When I was a kid, before the boom in Chinese imports, most tools, and virtually all electronics instruments were too expensive for me. In relative terms, they were at least ten times more expensive than they are today. I ended up making or trying to make a lot of them.
My first commercially manufactured VOM (which I still have, and its still functioning!) I think cost around $30 at Radio Shack. (and it was made I think in Japan, probably, and marked up a lot.) And that was a lot of money to me. Thats the way it used to be here.
Even the lowest permissible wages in the US are many times the wages in many developing countries. Their firms consider that increased labor cost to be an impermissible form of discrimination, that makes it so they cant take advantage of globalization to set up here, even if both multilateral trade agreements and their own workers are willing to work here for them. But the fact is most people would rather stay where they were born and grew up - we should try to create a world where people can do that and earn a decent wage everywhere.
If there is a big challenge we must face in the coming years its creating a global economy that works for everybody that is not coercive or predatory. Thats not an easy transition.
Startups often go looking for investors. But venture capital only wants to fund businesses that are profitable, and they prefer in the short term. I've had several friends who started well known companies. Most of them did okay with the caveat that several of them have basically been cheated out of their inventions and firms.
Family owned businesses have much more freedom as they dont have to pay a lot for financing. As I understand it the cost of money is so high because of the high yields overseas, there is a huge pressure on US firms to manufacture of base other parts of their business elsewhere because of the high yields from low - many would say artificially lowered wages. Even if for various reasons, that may not be smart.
In part thats why the US maintains such a large military, to protect the large investments US firms have made overseas, from changes that might increase the cost of labor.
Its basically framed by some that the cost of money is too high to justify anything labor intensive being based in the US unless for some reason it absolutely must be. Of course this is bullshit, many businesses are successfully and profitably manufacturng and many service businesses are also thriving here.
There are many other benefits, and we should do everything we can to improve upon them. Investing in people is a good investment.
Trade should be about mutually beneficial relationships.
All in all this system is in dire need of a reengineering to be more supportive of the entire planets needs and dreams.
We just have to realize that - we should do things for the long term, and doh- money isnt everything. People work for other reasons as well as to put food on the table. Or should. People work to derive satisfaction about what they do. Work should be a flow experience.
I'm told that that is happening to us whether we want it or not.
Its the dumb jobs that will vanish, the creative jobs will become more and more creative. And more global. We should begin planning for these shifts. Not trying to disengage from responsibilities.
Ed.Kloonk:
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on August 29, 2020, 09:05:32 pm ---
--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on August 29, 2020, 11:23:06 am ---
[...] The thing that most are forgetting is that western workers don't -really- want to do manufacturing. [...]
--- End quote ---
Which begs the question... what do Western workers -really- want to do?
It would be nice if we could all live off unearned income on the Bahamas...
--- End quote ---
That's the thing, though. I always reckoned that being a billionaire playboy looks like a pretty good job. It's good work, if you can get it.
Too many narcissists in the western work force. Cutting edge companies don't allow facebooking so that rules out a great chunk of people for inclusion in a theoretical workforce. So we're trying to set up a factory just for the remaining few motivated worker bees and it is not viable.
cdev:
--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on August 29, 2020, 11:24:45 pm ---
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on August 29, 2020, 09:05:32 pm ---
--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on August 29, 2020, 11:23:06 am ---
[...] The thing that most are forgetting is that western workers don't -really- want to do manufacturing. [...]
--- End quote ---
Which begs the question... what do Western workers -really- want to do?
It would be nice if we could all live off unearned income on the Bahamas...
--- End quote ---
That's the thing, though. I always reckoned that being a billionaire playboy looks like a pretty good job. It's good work, if you can get it.
Too many narcissists in the western work force. Cutting edge companies don't allow facebooking so that rules out a great chunk of people for inclusion in a theoretical workforce. So we're trying to set up a factory just for the remaining few motivated worker bees and it is not viable.
--- End quote ---
So, you want what change in policy???
Ed.Kloonk:
--- Quote from: cdev on August 30, 2020, 12:05:48 am ---
--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on August 29, 2020, 11:24:45 pm ---
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on August 29, 2020, 09:05:32 pm ---
--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on August 29, 2020, 11:23:06 am ---
[...] The thing that most are forgetting is that western workers don't -really- want to do manufacturing. [...]
--- End quote ---
Which begs the question... what do Western workers -really- want to do?
It would be nice if we could all live off unearned income on the Bahamas...
--- End quote ---
That's the thing, though. I always reckoned that being a billionaire playboy looks like a pretty good job. It's good work, if you can get it.
Too many narcissists in the western work force. Cutting edge companies don't allow facebooking so that rules out a great chunk of people for inclusion in a theoretical workforce. So we're trying to set up a factory just for the remaining few motivated worker bees and it is not viable.
--- End quote ---
So, you want what change in policy???
--- End quote ---
Just pointing out that wrenching jobs/factories away from Asia is not as simple as too many people think.
cdev:
--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on August 30, 2020, 02:14:09 am ---
--- Quote from: cdev on August 30, 2020, 12:05:48 am ---
--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on August 29, 2020, 11:24:45 pm ---
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on August 29, 2020, 09:05:32 pm ---
--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on August 29, 2020, 11:23:06 am ---
[...] The thing that most are forgetting is that western workers don't -really- want to do manufacturing. [...]
--- End quote ---
Which begs the question... what do Western workers -really- want to do?
It would be nice if we could all live off unearned income on the Bahamas...
--- End quote ---
That's the thing, though. I always reckoned that being a billionaire playboy looks like a pretty good job. It's good work, if you can get it.
Too many narcissists in the western work force. Cutting edge companies don't allow facebooking so that rules out a great chunk of people for inclusion in a theoretical workforce. So we're trying to set up a factory just for the remaining few motivated worker bees and it is not viable.
--- End quote ---
So, you want what change in policy???
--- End quote ---
Just pointing out that wrenching jobs/factories away from Asia is not as simple as too many people think.
--- End quote ---
I agree, and the reason why wages are so much lower in countries like India and Vietnam are that everything is cheaper, a lot cheaper. We shouldn't try to emulate them, its a race that we could never win, that nobody wins. Competition is healthy, there are lots of areas where different countries can and do compete well. We also cooperate well. We have to better take advantage of each of our strengths, in a fair way, and not lose touch with why we like to do tech stuff. The greater goal which I have to say, in no particular order, is having fun, while in no small part, pushing back the frontier of knowledge, and things like all humanity getting to the stars, and doing better by ALL the people here on Earth, stamping out hunger, for example, not just making money. When rated against some other motivators, money isnt even the strongest one. At least not in mentally healthy people.
It is a goal, certainly, but it cannot become the only goal. Money should be a tool to do good things, but not the ultimate goal, period, IMHO.
We have to recalibrate society and how we look at money to put more importance on different things, like for example, the joy of working, preserving it. Not making work a vehicle for profit extraction. For that reason, if I was a CEO (I'm nowhere even remotely close) I wouldnt say things like that. Ever. Its like rubbing dirt in the faces of all the hard working Chinese workers who have made Foxconn a success.
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