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Comment by bobbytit | Hacker News Reader

This has been a deliberate destruction of a once great nation since the moment Kissinger sold the US out to Chairman Mao. The world is now China's bitch but just have woken up to it.

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> This has been a deliberate destruction of a once great nation since the moment Kissinger sold the US out to Chairman Mao.

Nope. What has been going on over the last decades is simply the consequence of unregulated capitalism - by design, capitalism seeks to eliminate or reduce cost to increase profit, and China (as well as India and Vietnam) were/are the most cost-efficient locations to produce goods and provide services.

The need for people to have a villain in their stories always disturbed me. I guess it gives people a semblance of control if they “know” something, rather than acknowledging the innumerable causal factors intertwining with each other to create an unknowable future and unattributable past.

I am sure Kissinger played a part in many things, but he seems small pickles compared to labor costs (and hence quality of life) in the US being multiple standard deviations above the mean compared to the rest of the world.

How long did people expect that arbitrage opportunity to not be taken advantage of?

The only reason that this could be taken advantage of in any real sense, was the removal of capital controls, which was very much a political choice.

Also, adding China to the WTO was probably a bad thing for the lower half of the income distribution in the developed world.

Unless your nation is self sufficient, there are always costs to capital controls. The choice is not let everyone live happily ever after and restrict trade. Tradeoffs are made to remain competitive on a global playing field.

If China and other countries are bringing 1B+ people online to make products at a fifth of your wages, then it is only a matter of time before the buyers outside the country start buying from them.

Sure, but that's not what happened.

What happened was that American (and European) corporations started producing their goods in other countries, because it was cheaper for them.

Like, I would have no issue with this in general if China developed their own companies, rather than already profitable US companies slashing their labour costs massively by using cheaper labour. It's super problematic, and while one can argue it's been good for the world, it's been pretty crap for all the manual/manufacturing workers in the US, Uk and other developed countries.

Full disclosure: I'm from Ireland, and this sort of outsourcing was what employed my Dad (and now me).

It is true. Capitalism by design seeks that. And you too. And each of us. We seek to live in better conditions.

The side-effect of it is that technology that the day back was not reachable for most is now available for everyone: phones, cheap clothes, cheaper food, hot water, electricity, railways...

BTW I have lived in VN almost 10 years. It is true that VN has factories and workers are much cheaper.

Jobs move there. People buy cheaper products (automatically people that did not have access to something have access to it by the cost reduction).

Workers there get 4 times more of what they would get on their own and an insurance they would not have and do not need to work god knows where, probably selling in the street drinks or similar stuff.

I think that with all its imperfections, capitalism is the better alternative.

Btw we have never had unregulated capitalism... if we had, we would have worse salaries probably but more people could earn a life by themselves. Our friends the politicians are always there to tell you that you have to pay and shut up. For the good of all... lol. I do not buy that.

When it comes to globalization the problem lies in imbalanced trade. If there is no imbalanced trade whatsoever, then globalization cannot cause problems.

Trade surplus nations work more than they should. Trade deficit nations work less than they should. That has strong implication on where "all the jobs" end up.

My favorite example is Greece. "All the jobs" have moved to Germany.

I'd contend NAFTA was the kiss of death for the US. It's what turned on the country to cheap produce out-of-season, and it got us addicted to cheap electronics. People forget that shit like tape decks and the like used to be prohibitively expensive in the 70s/80s. Nowadays we have people working at McDonalds with $1000 phones in their pockets. I don't think these devices were meant to be had by all. You should have to work for them. Commoditizing electronics looks great from a human rights perspective, sure, but it's proved ruinous for the planet.

> McDonalds with $1000 phones in their pockets. I don't think these devices were meant to be had by all. You should have to work for them.

Aren’t they working for them?? At McDonald’s?? And honestly they’re probably working harder than me, a software engineer, who also has a 1000$ phone. But I also have healthcare, and never have to put up with mopping any flooring.

My point is that electronics should be prohibitively expensive. They have a lot of expensive parts in them. Today's budget iPhone should be something like $2000.

That’s an opinion; not a point. A point would be some justification for why you think that.

I said it: they have lots of expensive parts in them. They rely on expensive rare earth metals that require lots of capital to extract, and leave wakes of destruction on the landscape. They require lots of plastics that remain inert for thousands of years. If one is spending thousands of dollars on these things, then they better last a long time. Instead we throw them out every other year and begin the cycle anew again.

Actually there are less expensive parts. The parts are more expensive per unit mass but I bet an iPhone consumes about 1/10 of the raw materials as a early 70/80s entertainment boxes. It still just plastic, metal, glass, etc. The old electronics probably used worse chemicals in production as well. The lithium ion battery is probably the one outlier in that it's unique to mobile electronics but old portable electronics would use dozens of non-rechargeable batteries every year.

The lithium ion battery is probably the one outlier in that it's unique to mobile electronics but old portable electronics would use dozens of non-rechargeable batteries every year.

Sure, but devices with replaceable batteries are theoretically easier to use longer. The average person buys a mobile phone every other year and discards their old ones. Practically every consumer electronic out there uses rechargeable batteries now which puts a limited lifespan on them.

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