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It's also worth considering that certain industries (fisheries and agriculture for instance) are subsidised. It's in our national interest to maintain productio

by eyko 1y ago

It's also worth considering that certain industries (fisheries and agriculture for instance) are subsidised. It's in our national interest to maintain production capacity, so profits are the least of our concerns. Both the UK and the EU's agricultural sectors are heavily subsidised mainly for this reason. It's cheaper to import than to produce locally, especially with our environmental standards and targets, but we need to keep producing. More so in the current geopolitical climate. And whilst nobody wants to risk being starved to submission, it's also equally important to promote more profitable sectors, and tax accordingly, so that we can support our more strategic sectors. I wouldn't say we're doing a good job at that for what its worth.

flir 1y ago
While not disagreeing with you, I don't think we've done a great job of maintaining fisheries.
- wongarsu 1y ago
  Also, continuing overfishing is a terrible long-term strategy. Sure, we will have the boats, fishermen and infrastructure around fishing, but that's of no help if the fish are gone.
  - immibis 1y ago
    Politics isn't about good long-term planning - it's about accountability sinks. This decade: "We're not the ones trying to steal your fishing jobs!" Next decade: "It's not our fault there aren't fish!"
    - potato3732842 1y ago
      You missed the "you can fix it with money though, and our friends are just the people to give the money to" step that comes after each problem statement.
- eyko 1y ago
  Agreed, and the same goes for most strategic sectors: energy, agriculture, animal husbandry, semiconductors, communications, space, the infrastructure to support all these, education, etc.
aylmao 1y ago
+1, exactly. Focusing too much in the money makes you forget about the power. At a national leadership level, there isn't much power in having a local Warhammer industry, fishing is much more strategic. In broad terms, this is related to the error the USA made. Manufacturing in China was a very profitable deal for the USA. A lot of companies view labour first and foremost as expense, wealth as as the goal, and power in wealth— so it's not surprising as a whole the industry opted to "contract out" labour across the globe. A lot of power lays in labour though. Money doesn't produce, invent, move, feed, etc— money is only good if someone will take it at the amounts you have it to do that specific labour you need for you.
- seanmcdirmid 1y ago
  This is a bit harsh: the USA didn't devalue labor in general, just manufacturing. They hired software engineers from all over the world, along with a lot of higher value engineering and product development jobs. The error the USA made was in pushing the workforce up the value chain faster than everyone could handle, and a lot of Americans got left behind. China is moving up the value chain also, they are being forced to by their demographics, and they are investing heavily in the change ATM (just like they started investing heavily in green energy 10 years ago) so I don't think they will make the same mistake as the Americans are making right now.
  - rayiner 1y ago
    A lot of our “value chain” is bullshit. If and when China becomes twice as big an economy as the US, much of our “edge” in marketing, finance, and services isn’t going to mean squat. E.g. how much “GDP” will evaporate overnight when American universities no longer have the cachet that comes along with being the best universities in America?
    - seanmcdirmid 1y ago
      > A lot of our “value chain” is bullshit. No it isn't, productivity has to increase, that's why we constantly get rid of jobs that do not provide much value. People want more money, and the only way we get there is with more productivity (doing jobs that make more money). > If and when China becomes twice as big an economy as the US, much of our “edge” in marketing, finance, and services isn’t going to mean squat. China gets to 2X our GDP by doing what we basically did in the 90s, so you are definitely right! They will have their own marketing, financing and services. The only difference is that they won't need to outsource manufacturing to China (well, they are outsourcing it a bit now, but also investing tons in automation). > E.g. how much “GDP” will evaporate overnight when American universities no longer have the cachet that comes along with being the best universities in America? I don't know what you are ranting about, but I get the feeling that if I did know what you were saying here I would probably agree with you.
lmpdev 1y ago
That’s the biggest thing I took away from the whole Boeing corporate disaster You need to maintain at least a minimum amount of internal competency in almost all areas If you completely give away a capability to other countries (in this case, fishing knowledge and labour) it is much harder to bring back than just coughing up the money Those sectors you let die might not matter right now, but they might matter later. And you might have to scale up fast.
- 2Gkashmiri 1y ago
  We buy local brands of shoes that are in inr 300-2000 range and that solves like 70% of the shoes market in India. From shoes to skippers to formal shoes to ladies heels and such. Then you gave INr 3000-8000 that are considered really really expensive. Convert that to usd and you will see how much premium is being charged.
- pjc50 1y ago
  Perhaps. But does a subsidized industry retain competence, or retain incompetence? After all, if you're making a profit no matter what, what incentive is there to do well? Many of the EU farming and fishing subsidies are to NOT produce anything.
  - mapt 1y ago
    That often depends on the structure of the subsidy. "We will pay you 5 euros per kg of fish sold in supermarkets to consumers" is different from "We will pay you 500,000 euros a year to keep fishing". There is a very reasonable argument in fisheries starting at least a century ago (and locally long before that), that we're looking at a partially renewable good - that it would be easy to cause an unsustainable population collapse with unrestricted harvesting, and so you should try and intervene in the market to sustain fish populations and stabilize harvests. Subsidies intended to do this are distinct from subsidies intended to keep fishermen employed fishing.
- mapt 1y ago
  > If you completely give away a capability to other countries (in this case, fishing knowledge and labour) it is much harder to bring back than just coughing up the money I feel like money is overwhelmingly how we denominate value, effort, and agency in our society. Almost every time somebody says "You can't just throw money at the problem", they are arguing that we shouldn't even try that, contrary to all established reasoning about how society works. There are diminishing returns to funding, but the people who use this expression are typically at a tiny fraction of where we would expect to hit them. If you want to have a fishing industry because fish are your idealized heritage, then choose to subsidize it heavily either to continue to exist, and/or to expand it into waters and economies of scale where you can still fish profitably. Like the Japanese and the Chinese do, respectively.
pjmlp 1y ago
Which amid everything, maybe it is time to focus again on our own programming languages and OSes like in the cold war and export regulation days, it will suck for a while, but apparently it is how everything is going.
alibarber 1y ago
Whilst I appreciate that there are national and security interests to consider, I'd still say fish aren't one of them. I think a lack of seafood would have less of an impact to the general population than say, lack of satellite navigation or communication technology.
- swiftcoder 1y ago
  It's only ~100 years since seafood was the primary protein source of most coastal regions. The rampant mismanagement of fish/shellfish stocks that put an end to that has had knock-on effects across our entire food supply, that continue to influence agricultural policy to this day
butlike 1y ago
So wait, you have high environmental standards, so you import instead of producing locally. Wouldn't that implicitly give you lower standards at home?

by eyko 1y ago

flir 1y ago

While not disagreeing with you, I don't think we've done a great job of maintaining fisheries.

wongarsu 1y ago
Also, continuing overfishing is a terrible long-term strategy. Sure, we will have the boats, fishermen and infrastructure around fishing, but that's of no help if the fish are gone.
- immibis 1y ago
  Politics isn't about good long-term planning - it's about accountability sinks. This decade: "We're not the ones trying to steal your fishing jobs!" Next decade: "It's not our fault there aren't fish!"
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    You missed the "you can fix it with money though, and our friends are just the people to give the money to" step that comes after each problem statement.
eyko 1y ago
Agreed, and the same goes for most strategic sectors: energy, agriculture, animal husbandry, semiconductors, communications, space, the infrastructure to support all these, education, etc.

aylmao 1y ago

+1, exactly. Focusing too much in the money makes you forget about the power. At a national leadership level, there isn't much power in having a local Warhammer industry, fishing is much more strategic. In broad terms, this is related to the error the USA made. Manufacturing in China was a very profitable deal for the USA. A lot of companies view labour first and foremost as expense, wealth as as the goal, and power in wealth— so it's not surprising as a whole the industry opted to "contract out" labour across the globe. A lot of power lays in labour though. Money doesn't produce, invent, move, feed, etc— money is only good if someone will take it at the amounts you have it to do that specific labour you need for you.

seanmcdirmid 1y ago
This is a bit harsh: the USA didn't devalue labor in general, just manufacturing. They hired software engineers from all over the world, along with a lot of higher value engineering and product development jobs. The error the USA made was in pushing the workforce up the value chain faster than everyone could handle, and a lot of Americans got left behind. China is moving up the value chain also, they are being forced to by their demographics, and they are investing heavily in the change ATM (just like they started investing heavily in green energy 10 years ago) so I don't think they will make the same mistake as the Americans are making right now.
- rayiner 1y ago
  A lot of our “value chain” is bullshit. If and when China becomes twice as big an economy as the US, much of our “edge” in marketing, finance, and services isn’t going to mean squat. E.g. how much “GDP” will evaporate overnight when American universities no longer have the cachet that comes along with being the best universities in America?
  - seanmcdirmid 1y ago
    > A lot of our “value chain” is bullshit. No it isn't, productivity has to increase, that's why we constantly get rid of jobs that do not provide much value. People want more money, and the only way we get there is with more productivity (doing jobs that make more money). > If and when China becomes twice as big an economy as the US, much of our “edge” in marketing, finance, and services isn’t going to mean squat. China gets to 2X our GDP by doing what we basically did in the 90s, so you are definitely right! They will have their own marketing, financing and services. The only difference is that they won't need to outsource manufacturing to China (well, they are outsourcing it a bit now, but also investing tons in automation). > E.g. how much “GDP” will evaporate overnight when American universities no longer have the cachet that comes along with being the best universities in America? I don't know what you are ranting about, but I get the feeling that if I did know what you were saying here I would probably agree with you.

lmpdev 1y ago

That’s the biggest thing I took away from the whole Boeing corporate disaster You need to maintain at least a minimum amount of internal competency in almost all areas If you completely give away a capability to other countries (in this case, fishing knowledge and labour) it is much harder to bring back than just coughing up the money Those sectors you let die might not matter right now, but they might matter later. And you might have to scale up fast.

2Gkashmiri 1y ago
We buy local brands of shoes that are in inr 300-2000 range and that solves like 70% of the shoes market in India. From shoes to skippers to formal shoes to ladies heels and such. Then you gave INr 3000-8000 that are considered really really expensive. Convert that to usd and you will see how much premium is being charged.
pjc50 1y ago
Perhaps. But does a subsidized industry retain competence, or retain incompetence? After all, if you're making a profit no matter what, what incentive is there to do well? Many of the EU farming and fishing subsidies are to NOT produce anything.
- mapt 1y ago
  That often depends on the structure of the subsidy. "We will pay you 5 euros per kg of fish sold in supermarkets to consumers" is different from "We will pay you 500,000 euros a year to keep fishing". There is a very reasonable argument in fisheries starting at least a century ago (and locally long before that), that we're looking at a partially renewable good - that it would be easy to cause an unsustainable population collapse with unrestricted harvesting, and so you should try and intervene in the market to sustain fish populations and stabilize harvests. Subsidies intended to do this are distinct from subsidies intended to keep fishermen employed fishing.
mapt 1y ago
> If you completely give away a capability to other countries (in this case, fishing knowledge and labour) it is much harder to bring back than just coughing up the money I feel like money is overwhelmingly how we denominate value, effort, and agency in our society. Almost every time somebody says "You can't just throw money at the problem", they are arguing that we shouldn't even try that, contrary to all established reasoning about how society works. There are diminishing returns to funding, but the people who use this expression are typically at a tiny fraction of where we would expect to hit them. If you want to have a fishing industry because fish are your idealized heritage, then choose to subsidize it heavily either to continue to exist, and/or to expand it into waters and economies of scale where you can still fish profitably. Like the Japanese and the Chinese do, respectively.

pjmlp 1y ago

Which amid everything, maybe it is time to focus again on our own programming languages and OSes like in the cold war and export regulation days, it will suck for a while, but apparently it is how everything is going.

alibarber 1y ago

Whilst I appreciate that there are national and security interests to consider, I'd still say fish aren't one of them. I think a lack of seafood would have less of an impact to the general population than say, lack of satellite navigation or communication technology.

swiftcoder 1y ago
It's only ~100 years since seafood was the primary protein source of most coastal regions. The rampant mismanagement of fish/shellfish stocks that put an end to that has had knock-on effects across our entire food supply, that continue to influence agricultural policy to this day

butlike 1y ago

So wait, you have high environmental standards, so you import instead of producing locally. Wouldn't that implicitly give you lower standards at home?