9 ms·

What would the world look like without China ? There is literally nowhere else to go to build something today...

zackmorris 7y ago
That's why we're living in a time of phantom prosperity. An analogy is when celebrities make a million dollars and think that they are rich, only to spend it all and find that they owe half a million dollars in taxes. After selling their possessions and settling with the IRS, they sometimes end up with nothing. The fallacy is thinking that since you have something in hand, you can always get it again. True prosperity would be more along the lines of true wealth. For example, having a business or investment that pays dividends for life. $1 million is actually worth about $50,000/year at 5% interest, and in practice probably less. We should be living in an era where our basic needs and trivial manufactured goods like a DB-19 connector are readily available or easily manufactured from scratch. We shouldn't have to buy in large lots from mysterious manufacturers halfway around the world. As a child of the 80s, I'm seeing a lot of shiny consumer electronic goods but the almost total loss of any kind of autonomy. We can't do things anymore that used to be taken for granted, like repair our own tools or cars, barter medical work for venison, work part time and go to school, you get the idea. I'm hopeful that this might change after the next recession though, kind of like how everyone pulled themselves up after the 2008 housing bubble popped and got the mobile/social and gig economies moving. Kind of sad if it comes to that though.
- setpatchaddress 7y ago
  > barter medical work for venison exactly where did you live in the 80's?
  - Spooky23 7y ago
    Where I grew up about 2 hours north of NYC, that sort of thing was not uncommon in the 80s.
  - Mountain_Skies 7y ago
    In that timeframe I had a heart condition. The local cardiologist I saw was really into hunting. He even had some trophy bucks and bass mounted on the waiting room wall. His wife, a nurse at the hospital I was in for a week, described him as "a good ol' boy". It wouldn't surprise me if he at some point took some hunting related payment instead of cash. Medical insurance, while common, was less of a thing back then and barter was quite common in the community. Mostly people trading boats, trucks, rifles, and appliances with each other but services happened too. It was the type of informal arrangements that work in areas with high social cohesion.
  - zackmorris 7y ago
    Sorry ya without context, I don't suppose my comment made sense. I grew up in Idaho and went through a couple of recessions. Most of the TV/movies from that time like Family Ties and Ferris Bueller's Day Off portray it as prosperous, but it was really more like South Park. My dad practiced dentistry for many years but due to some house fires and other setbacks, we didn't have money until I was about 15. So I grew up eating a lot of lamb, deer, elk, farm fresh eggs, etc that he got when he traded out dental work because nobody had much money. So what I was trying to say is, real prosperity to me would look more like if the 80s and 90s had continued so the US still had its manufacturing base today. A bit more like how Germany has prospered. Instead we have the appearance for prosperity for most, but the bottom income half of the US is really struggling right now with multiple jobs, high debts, and not nearly as strong of a social safety net as we had then. So I question why that is necessary when some people are doing so phenomenally well. To me, America lost its way after the dot bomb around 2000 and never really recovered. Maybe I'm reaching though, if I'm seeing conspiracies just because we can't find a discontinued connector, which I fully admit haha.
jdashg 7y ago
If it weren't for China, someone else would be building these. Take China away instantaneously, and there'd be problems. But the reason there's no where else to build something like this today is because China does it better[1]. Without China, (and with enough time) it'd be someone else. [1]: According to market forces.
- ncmncm 7y ago
  I.e does it cheaper. "Better" is optional, not necessarily available. But surprisingly often is...
- julienfr112 7y ago
  The problem is "enough time" can be a generation. For example, France didn't build any nuclear power plants for two decade, and when it finaly build a new one (EPR) it takes three time more time an money than expected, because no one no anything anyymore on building a nuclear power plant in France ....

That's why we're living in a time of phantom prosperity. An analogy is when celebrities make a million dollars and think that they are rich, only to spend it all and find that they owe half a million dollars in taxes. After selling their possessions and settling with the IRS, they sometimes end up with nothing. The fallacy is thinking that since you have something in hand, you can always get it again. True prosperity would be more along the lines of true wealth. For example, having a business or investment that pays dividends for life. $1 million is actually worth about $50,000/year at 5% interest, and in practice probably less. We should be living in an era where our basic needs and trivial manufactured goods like a DB-19 connector are readily available or easily manufactured from scratch. We shouldn't have to buy in large lots from mysterious manufacturers halfway around the world. As a child of the 80s, I'm seeing a lot of shiny consumer electronic goods but the almost total loss of any kind of autonomy. We can't do things anymore that used to be taken for granted, like repair our own tools or cars, barter medical work for venison, work part time and go to school, you get the idea. I'm hopeful that this might change after the next recession though, kind of like how everyone pulled themselves up after the 2008 housing bubble popped and got the mobile/social and gig economies moving. Kind of sad if it comes to that though.

setpatchaddress 7y ago
> barter medical work for venison exactly where did you live in the 80's?
- Spooky23 7y ago
  Where I grew up about 2 hours north of NYC, that sort of thing was not uncommon in the 80s.
- Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  In that timeframe I had a heart condition. The local cardiologist I saw was really into hunting. He even had some trophy bucks and bass mounted on the waiting room wall. His wife, a nurse at the hospital I was in for a week, described him as "a good ol' boy". It wouldn't surprise me if he at some point took some hunting related payment instead of cash. Medical insurance, while common, was less of a thing back then and barter was quite common in the community. Mostly people trading boats, trucks, rifles, and appliances with each other but services happened too. It was the type of informal arrangements that work in areas with high social cohesion.
- zackmorris 7y ago
  Sorry ya without context, I don't suppose my comment made sense. I grew up in Idaho and went through a couple of recessions. Most of the TV/movies from that time like Family Ties and Ferris Bueller's Day Off portray it as prosperous, but it was really more like South Park. My dad practiced dentistry for many years but due to some house fires and other setbacks, we didn't have money until I was about 15. So I grew up eating a lot of lamb, deer, elk, farm fresh eggs, etc that he got when he traded out dental work because nobody had much money. So what I was trying to say is, real prosperity to me would look more like if the 80s and 90s had continued so the US still had its manufacturing base today. A bit more like how Germany has prospered. Instead we have the appearance for prosperity for most, but the bottom income half of the US is really struggling right now with multiple jobs, high debts, and not nearly as strong of a social safety net as we had then. So I question why that is necessary when some people are doing so phenomenally well. To me, America lost its way after the dot bomb around 2000 and never really recovered. Maybe I'm reaching though, if I'm seeing conspiracies just because we can't find a discontinued connector, which I fully admit haha.

jdashg 7y ago

If it weren't for China, someone else would be building these. Take China away instantaneously, and there'd be problems. But the reason there's no where else to build something like this today is because China does it better[1]. Without China, (and with enough time) it'd be someone else. [1]: According to market forces.

ncmncm 7y ago
I.e does it cheaper. "Better" is optional, not necessarily available. But surprisingly often is...
julienfr112 7y ago
The problem is "enough time" can be a generation. For example, France didn't build any nuclear power plants for two decade, and when it finaly build a new one (EPR) it takes three time more time an money than expected, because no one no anything anyymore on building a nuclear power plant in France ....