Miscellaneous News

iewgnem said:

This is a common fallacy from countries that don't manufacture anything.
People take for granted what they can buy from China, without any understanding of the depth of complexity that goes into making them.
They then convince themselves they can make it themselves, it might just be more expensive, which can be simply solved by tariffs.
But reality is they have no idea how deep the supply chain goes, they have no idea how many other things they need to make first, what they need to make to make those other things first, what materials are needed to make them, what tools they need to make those materials, and this repeats for dozens and dozens of layers even for the simplest products.

The fundamentally logical fallacy is the false belief that China is simply the most competitive manufacturer, when the truth is China CREATED the world we live in, that the world we live in could never have existed without China, and the world we live in would cease to exist without China.

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horse said:

I could be wrong on this, probably am, but I really thought that the percentage of the population working the land to survive had gone up over these years.

I think I remember it was 40% then it declined to somewhere in 35% maybe, but when I checked a few months ago, the Indian government said 42% of the population was still living off the land.

The Industrial Revolution was over a 100 years ago. That passed India by. They call that the first industrial revolution.

The second industrial revolution was basically the developments in manufacturing during the post war boom. That was when material wealth really accelerated in the Western countries, lifting their people into higher standards of living, such as modern life as we know it today, started from that era. The second industrial revolution basically passed India by too. It also pass on by China, with the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution that got in the way.

The third industrial revolution so they call it was basically was the internet and vast increases in computing power that was affordable, changing society and the means of production. This internet revolution basically passed on by India, except for a few companies. The point about the previous industrial revolution was that it lifted almost all of the people in a country out of a poorer condition to a richer condition. That did not happen in India. As for China, this is where they got into the game and became a player.

The fourth industrial revolution, let's call it AI and robotics, since it is ongoing was we watch the world go by, clearly there are only two countries duking it out, and one seems have a lead in the latter, and probably equal in the former, for now at least.

China took full advantage of the third industrial revolution, transforming itself. It missed the bus for the first and second, due to various historical reasons. Seems to me, India missed the bus for all three. They could not transform their society, as 42% of the people still living off the land.

This next industrial revolution of AI and robotics, is the game being played here, to industrialized for today, means the factory has to be competitive, which means it needs AI and robotics. The AI part, everyone has DeepSeek, so in a way there is a level playing field. The robotics require precision parts, which India lacks.

So, it is not nice to say, but I am convinced India will miss the bus again for the fourth industrial revolution. Sure, there will be some successful India companies, but the point of when we that about industrialization we cannot escape history, which is the industrial revolutions and its impact on society which lifted people into higher standards of living.

That is India. They got to do something for themselves, instead of trying to have everyone leave the country. First, second, third, fourth, industrial revolution, they got to try to get into the game!

But, no. All we hear is yap yap yap, about nothing!

[rant][/rant]

My apologies. Once I started with the industrial revolution talk, the rant ranted off on it own! LOL!

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Sardaukar20 said:

These countries that sell with raw materials can demand all the industrial investments that they want. They can even force foreign companies buying their natural resources to setup local industries and employ their people. But that will still not automatically make their manufacturing competitive to the international market.

I would caution against this mindset of "we have the natural resources, therefore we have the power". This is a mindset that breeds mediocrity. There is one such example in SEA. That nation is blessed with oil, gas, minerals, timber, and marine resources. The people of this nation praise to the heavens everyday for blessing them with these resources. At some point, they kicked out an island on the south of this nation because they don't like the majority race of the people living there. That newborn little island nation only had mangrove swamps and negligible natural resources. While the blessed nation can easily make tons of money from the fat of their land, their new tiny neighbour had no choice but to rely on their bare hands and wits to make a living. Fast forward decades later, the blessed country had grown, but it remains a middle income third-world economy. It's industries are uncompetitive, and it had fallen deep into the middle income trap. Their tiny neighbour to the south whom they had abandoned and ridiculed have instead managed to transform itself into a first world economy.

Post-colonial third world nations are right to be grateful to be blessed with rich natural resources. But they should not get ahead of themselves and start becoming arrogant about it. They don't owe the industrialized nations anything. And the industrialized nations can chose where they wanna invest too.

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tamsen_ikard said:

Chinese self-haters in China_irl reddit sub talking about HQ-29. I just couldn't resist sharing this cause its so unbelievable. These self-haters are siblings of Gordon Chang and dominate Reddit. Its hard to believe so many such people exist in China.

Google Translated:

View attachment 159216
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Postal services in India, Europe. U.K. to suspend shipment of packages to U.S. over import tariffs

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Postal services in Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Italy said they will stop shipping most merchandise to the U.S. effective immediately. France and Austria will follow Monday, and the United Kingdom Tuesday.

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India's government also said the country will temporarily suspend postal deliveries to the United States starting Monday, except letters, documents and gift items of up to $100 in value, the AFP reported.

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tamsen_ikard said:

Chinese self-haters in China_irl reddit sub talking about HQ-29. I just couldn't resist sharing this cause its so unbelievable. These self-haters are siblings of Gordon Chang and dominate Reddit. Its hard to believe so many such people exist in China.

Google Translated:

View attachment 159216
View attachment 159215

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proelite said:

Jai Crane!

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Africablack said:

It worked for China. The reason why it isn't working for America is that Americans don't want to and aren't ready to reduce their standard of living in order to re-industrialize. Poorer countries don't have that problem. Furthermore, America has high employment already, many poor countries have high supply of labor. Anyone who thinks automation will somehow lock in industrialization in countries that are already industrialized at the expense of everybody else and keep them in a permanent poverty trap is not thinking seriously. The world will become horrifically unbalanced and so you folks better be ready for illegal migrants crossing borders. Serious governments will start demanding industrial investments otherwise good luck sourcing your raw materials.

China does what China has to do so I guess that's fair. China doesn't get flak because it doesn't have colonial baggage and they aren't evangelical about promoting human rights, democracy, etc. In short, it's much easier to deal with because it doesn't interfere in a country's internal affairs, it just does deals and leaves. China wants commodities to feed it's mighty industry, it will work for as long as it is an alternative to the west and their arrogance with them acting like they're the supreme beings that should dominate everybody. However, a time will come when the world will have to balance itself, folks are not going to accept being permanent importers of Chinese products, local industrial investments will have to be on the table even if it's just basic assembly.

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plawolf said:

That’s pretty insulting to the hard work and sacrifice of generations of Chinese people to dismiss all of their collective sacrifices and the hardships they endured as just being cheaper labour and having poorer standards of living.

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manqiangrexue said:

Actually, every time India acts up, China inflicts some damage on them and they back off and we're not surrounded.

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manqiangrexue said:

Who is "we?" China and the US are not "we." Those are the 2 primary countries in the global rivalry so when one wants something, typically, the other wants the reverse. When the US wants to buckle India, China protects them. When the US wants to bolster India, we suppress them.

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manqiangrexue said:

It's really just to piss Trump off and lock up another one of his misadventures so that he's stuck fighting his own failures. Kick India and it helps Trump. Never help your adversary. We don't give India anything anyway. We didn't unlock rare earth restrictions but India unlocked TikTok and Aliexpress. A little bit of cooperation is a little temporary progress, but keep your eyes on your real enemy, never allow yourself to be distracted by clowns, and never do anything that your enemy wants you to do.

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manqiangrexue said:

China's the most competitive and Russia needed to protect its own industries? I really don't know the circumstances but whether a country is a friend or foe doesn't depend on any cherry-picked event like you're doing now. It depends on the large picture, which is that Russia is fighting China's enemies for us, keeping them off our backs and the Russia economy has turned away from the West towards China. So it's a friend. That's all there is to it. It doesn't matter what kind of small oddly specific bullshit you find, "Oh, in 2022, Russia once rejected a shipment of Chinese apples. DO FRIENDS DO THAT??? THEY TREAT US LIKE ENEMY!" The big picture is all that matters and the big picture says that Russia is very much on China's side right now and they deserve reciprocation.

Russia is fighting 30+ of our enemies at once and you don't want to contribute? You want to extract concessions??!! LOLOL You are dense, man, very very dense. Right now, Russia's fighting for the both of us. China needs to support them like NATO supports Ukraine. I told you this before but it seems you didn't get it. I asked you, what if Russia ends the war? Right now, they can sign a deal with Trump that would give them massive plots of Ukrainian territory and it would let bygones be bygones. Then, Russia can start to reintegrate into the Western economy again and the West can focus on the China threat again. Is that what you want? Is that what you call strategy? That's not what I want. I want China to give Russia the material support to convince it that it should fight for more of Ukraine, amplify the troubles of the West and buy China more time to develop into a titan that none of them can hope to challenge. That is strategy.

China is ready; we do not trust blindly as we have much in reserve that we did not open to Russia. But we are not stupid; we do not let Russia fall so our enemies can focus on us and we certainly do not push countries into the jaws of the West so they can be forced to capitulate and be integrated into the Western empire. When we see cracks in our enemies, we open them, we don't push them together like the US does with China and Russia.

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Africablack said:

It worked for China. The reason why it isn't working for America is that Americans don't want to and aren't ready to reduce their standard of living in order to re-industrialize. Poorer countries don't have that problem. Furthermore, America has high employment already, many poor countries have high supply of labor. Anyone who thinks automation will somehow lock in industrialization in countries that are already industrialized at the expense of everybody else and keep them in a permanent poverty trap is not thinking seriously. The world will become horrifically unbalanced and so you folks better be ready for illegal migrants crossing borders. Serious governments will start demanding industrial investments otherwise good luck sourcing your raw materials.

China does what China has to do so I guess that's fair. China doesn't get flak because it doesn't have colonial baggage and they aren't evangelical about promoting human rights, democracy, etc. In short, it's much easier to deal with because it doesn't interfere in a country's internal affairs, it just does deals and leaves. China wants commodities to feed it's mighty industry, it will work for as long as it is an alternative to the west and their arrogance with them acting like they're the supreme beings that should dominate everybody. However, a time will come when the world will have to balance itself, folks are not going to accept being permanent importers of Chinese products, local industrial investments will have to be on the table even if it's just basic assembly.

Click to expand...