17 ms·

> China generates over twice as much electricity per person today as the United States. Why? This appears to be completely wrong? All the stats I can find say

by pjc50 2y ago

> China generates over twice as much electricity per person today as the United States. Why? This appears to be completely wrong? All the stats I can find say that the US has about 4x the per capita electricity generation of China. Other than that it seems to be mostly good points, especially the overall one: you cannot do this overnight. > If you’re building a new factory in the United States, your investment will alternate between maybe it will work, and catastrophic loss according to which way the tariffs and the wind blows. No one is building factories right now, and no one is renting them, because there is no certainty that any of these tariffs will last Policy by amphetamine-driven tweeting is a disaster. > 12. Enforcement of the tariffs will be uneven and manipulated Yup. The 145% level seems designed to create smuggling, and the wild variations between countries to create re-labelling. It's chicken tax trucks all over again. > This is probably the worst economic policy I’ve ever seen Per Simpsons: this is the worst economic policy you've seen so far. The budget is yet to come. > If American companies want to sell in China, they must incorporate there, register capital, and name a person to be a legal representative. To sell in Europe, we must register for their tax system and nominate a legal representative. For Europeans and Chinese to sell in the United States, none of this is needed, nor do federal taxes need to be paid. This is .. not a bad idea, really. It would probably be annoying for small EU and UK exporters but less so than 10% tariffs and even less so than random day of the week tariffs. Maybe one day it could harmonise with the EU VAT system or something. (also I think the author is imagining that sub-par workers, crime, and drugs don't exist in China, when they almost certainly do, but somewhere out of sight. Possibly due to the internal migration control of hukou combined with media control?)

mapt 2y ago
When I visited China, the expats told me that recreational drug supplychains were strictly compartmentalized. There was the supply of illicit drugs for Westerners (imported by the sons of Nigerian businessmen, the cliche went), the supply of illicit drugs for Chinese people (who only dealt with Chinese people), and then there were the vast array of drugs that are completely legal to get over the counter in China without a prescription (at a pharmacy or CTM shop) that would be controlled substances in a US pharmacy. That the official line from the CCP was that China had no drug problems, no prostitution, a variety of other things†, and that there were no gay people in China; That these were all Western ailments. Urban China is a panopticon state not only digitally, but culturally. Housing is much tighter than the US, walls thinner. Your underwear is hung out to dry in clear view. "Privacy" in terms of politeness norms mostly consists of pretending you don't see or hear a thing. Neighbors generally know a lot about what each other are doing. 7% of the population are Party members, and in Marxist-Leninist systems this connotes something closer to earning a military officer commission; The Party is not trivial to apply to, the Party is strictly regimented, Party rules are held above and before the civil law, Party members are expected to be informers and have a strict lawful-good orientation from the perspective of the regime. Penalties for commerce in illicit drugs are even more extreme than the US, and due process is not bound by the same presumptions. There are lots of factors conspiring against the sort of informal US inner city street drug distribution being as big of a deal in China. Disclaimer: All my information is more than a decade out of date, and was only ever a thin slice of opinions from mostly Westerners in some first tier cities. † From an academic paper: "2 The Six Evils are prostitution, drugs, selling women and children, pornography, gambling, and feudal superstition. Criminal gangs, or triads, are often counted as a seventh evil. These vices represent impediments to modernization and throwbacks to social problems that were present prior to the Communist takeover. Elevation of a problem to an "evil" symbolizes that the Beijing regime will mount a "campaign" or "struggle" against it."
- HPsquared 2y ago
  That's an interesting subject. Are there any books about it?
- hylaride 2y ago
  > hat the official line from the CCP was that China had no drug problems, no prostitution, a variety of other things Reminds me of a book I read years ago about the Soviet Union. Officially prostitution didn't exist there either, so there were no laws on the books about it. Enforcement usually was around various "antisocial" laws and usually for the street-walkers. Crime in general was mostly fine, so long as it wasn't a threat to the state, against well-connected people, or otherwise visible. No wonder Russia got so bad after the strong state dissipated.
- mcftefr 2y ago
  > The Party is not trivial to apply to, the Party is strictly regimented, Party rules are held above and before the civil law, Party members are expected to be informers and have a strict lawful-good orientation from the perspective of the regime. If only... (source: am Chinese)
tokioyoyo 2y ago
Once again, want to point out how this is simply American leadership not wanting to accept their loss and move on. For the first time in the history they're not being perceived as the "global leader", and that's not acceptable from their POV. Now it's just freaking out and hoping that some extreme policy changes will change the course. From my personal experience, most people act this way when they're in distress and can't think ahead because of all the externalities.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_(psychology)#Burst https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_(psychology)#Burst
- Teever 2y ago
  This isn't just ego. This is an impending existential issue. America needs to increase manufacturing capacity if it wants to maintain hegemony and possibly world peace. China will soon have the ability to take Taiwan and Korea and Japan. If that happens it's game over for any American interests and perhaps democracy as a whole. Wargames[0] paint a grim picture of an upcoming conflict between China and America over Taiwan with the US barely winning at a great cost including the loss of many ships, aircraft, and the depletion of missile stocks. The Chinese have a naval production of 260 times that of America and account for an ungodly amount of global steel production so they'll be able to bounce back faster than the US can. With a lead time for producing American missiles measured in months and years it will be just a matter of time before they take the countries in the region that are critical to American manufacturing if they're so inclined. [0] https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/CSIS%20Simulation%20Results.pdf https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites...
  - Bouncingsoul1 2y ago
    Hello slippery slope how are you doing?
  - esafak 2y ago
rickdeckard 2y ago
> China generates over twice as much electricity per person today as the United States. Why? >> This appears to be completely wrong? All the stats I can find say that the US has about 4x the per capita electricity generation of China. I believe the comparison is absolute production, not per person. Anything else would be odd. Considering China has 4x the capita of US it would mean that in absolute terms China is producing 8x the energy of the US. In reality it seems to be roughly 2x (although both sources are a bit outdated): US 2023: 4.18 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity from utility-scale generators. Additionally, small-scale solar photovoltaic systems contributed around 73.62 billion kWh 1. China 2021: 8.53 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity -- But the staggering difference is how much of the electricity is attributed to the Industrial sector: China: 70% (~6 trillion kWh) US: 26% (~1 trillion kWh) So overall China allocates 6x the electricity to production compared to US...
- ZeroGravitas 2y ago
  China is also more electrified generally than the US. They only just pulled ahead but the rate of change is startling. Since 2000 they've gone from 10% of final energy being electricity to nearly 26% while the US has been basically flat around 23% and they are both predicted to grow (or not grow) at roughly the same in the next few years.
- xbmcuser 2y ago
  China electricity consumption is growing by 6-8% a year and is likely to hit 10500 trillion kilowatt-hours in 2025. Which at $0.10/kwh the avg is a $1 trillion dollars. Though from what I understand in China home users are charged about $0.07 and industry $0.08 so $7-800 billion a year on electricity alone. They are rapidly moving to renewable with grid scale BESS auctions avg $66-68/kw they are likely to have electricity prices at $0.01-0.02 over the next few years. I think it will be extremely tough to compete with China in manufacturing unless there is huge investment in renewable and storage systems to keep electricity prices competitive with China who are going to move on from coal over the next decade.
  - jillesvangurp 2y ago
looseyesterday 2y ago
On crime they most centrically do, watch the China Show (not the bloomberg one) on youtube. One example given on the show is that Once you go into northern villages and small towns you start seeing propganda posters on why you shouldn't take drugs. Homelessness is widespread and present too but you just wont see it in city centers more on the outstkirts.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  Police in cities will beat homeless people and get them back on buses to where their hukou is, so the homeless that remain are very good at hiding. Hostile architecture is also very common in China. But there is a lot of sub quality housing (eg in sub-basements that lack windows or good ventilation) that allow much of the working poor to at least be technically housed even in expensive cities (many restaurants also provide housing for their staff in the dining area after closing, or did at least 20 years ago). The outskirts used to have more slums than they had today in Beijing, most of the slums have moved into sub-basements as far as I can tell (called the “ant tribe”). Crime really is much lower than it was a decade ago. People have more money, societal trust is higher. Drug use in clubs has always been a thing, but China differs from the USA in that their is no social support at all for addicts (so they either get clean with help from their family or they die).
- torginus 2y ago
  Do not watch it please unless you want to consume worldview-distoring propaganda and become more ignorant as a result. It's made by 2 American expats who gotten kicked out of China when visa-requirements were tightened, and no-skill immigrants were no longer welcome. They've become anti-China youtubers serving the hungry China-hating audience on how China is bad and a paper tiger. Instead watch this guy (https://www.youtube.com/@Awakening_Richard https://www.youtube.com/@Awakening_Richard). I'm not saying he's unbiased, either, but he's thoughtful and I think he brings insight into how the Chinese intelligentsia thinks about how the world works. But back to your point - it's oft repeated that Chinese population decline will destroy China in the long run and poverty in Chinese society. He made a video on this exact issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdRH7aPWGGc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdRH7aPWGGc The TLDR version is that about half of the Chinese population lives in desperate poverty (and are economically invisible), and just a couple decades ago 90+% of Chinese lived like this. One cannot bring about a transformation into an industrialized wealthy lifestyle overnight, but coming from the experience of the past decades, the Chinese have been remarkably effective in this, and the following decades will see these people lifted up to modern societal standards as well. By this alone, one can conservatively expect a doubling of Chinese GDP, as there will be twice as many consumers and laborers who consume and work at the level of the current workforce. This also means that China has a huge and high marginal utility domestic demand for goods, and even if sanctioned, they wont run of people to sell to.
like_any_other 2y ago
> Other than that it seems to be mostly good points, especially the overall one: you cannot do this overnight. It's annoying Americans were given only two choices - offshoring is great and let's keep doing it, and, as you say, the opposite, meth-fueled let's bring back manufacturing overnight. The kind of slow and steady protection and promotion of home-grown industry that China and most of Asia so successfully used to grow their economies was completely absent as even a talking point.
- zasz 2y ago
  That IS what Biden was trying to do though with the CHIPS Incentive Act. He was trying to onshore production of semiconductors in a partnership with TSMC. Didn't do him any favors, and Harris lost the state of Arizona anyway. Americans had the choice between a party that was serious about trying to onshore some manufacturing and a party that wasn't, and it made the wrong choice because vibes, basically.
  - like_any_other 2y ago
    > because vibes, basically This may be more accurate than you realize. Both Democrat and old Republican party rhetoric and policies were pro-globalization/offshoring, with the occasional exception such as CHIPS (and corn subsidies). It's not surprising nobody believed they were changing direction, if for every "we're bringing semiconductors back", they heard ten "your car is German your phone is Chinese your tacos are Mexican, how dare you interfere with glorious Free Trade!"
    - jghn 2y ago
      Also one can't ignore that the GOP managed to remarked the CHIPS act as a key source of inflation, which they also managed to pin on "Bidenomics". Which was another source of "vibes, basically"
      - kelipso 2y ago
        Weren't we hearing for years about how it went to waste because Intel did stock buybacks or whatever using the CHIPS money. Now we are supposed to believe it's critical?
bparsons 2y ago
I think they conflated electricity production growth with total output. Output in the US has been flat for some time, while China has been on a steady rate of climb for several decades.
pokot0 2y ago
Can someone explain to me why EU VAT is considered a tariff, while US sales taxes are not? They both seem a sale tax to me.
- pjc50 2y ago
  Only people who are wrong consider VAT a tariff. Yes, importers have to pay it, but so do local manufacturers. VAT has basically the same effect as sales taxes with a much more complicated tax incidence.
  - freeone3000 2y ago
    At an individual level, it’s not more complicated: it’s reimbursed instead of exempted. And if you’re charging it, it’s easier, since you simply always charge instead of maintaining your list of exceptions.
    - pjc50 2y ago
      UK VAT certainly has a complicated list of exceptions, especially "non-luxury food" (see the Jaffa Cake case https://www.astonshaw.co.uk/jaffa-cake-tax/ https://www.astonshaw.co.uk/jaffa-cake-tax/)
      - freeone3000 2y ago
        But these are per-product, not per-customer. (Businesses, charities, and some customers are exempt from sales tax regardless of what they are buying.)
- charamis 2y ago
  Really wondering about the same, since VAT is applied to everything too, not only imported products and services.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- 2y ago
mcv 2y ago
That is really the big problem with the current policy in the US: it's completely unclear what the policy is and how long it will last. This is not a stable climate for investment. Would you invest in a country where the president plays Russian roulette with the economy? Most corporations will wait it out. Corporations that have an established interest (like Big Tech) will bribe Trump to get the exemptions they need to continue their business. Everybody else will have to decide how much they will want to depend on such an openly corrupt system. There industries that see no problem in dealing with corrupt regimes.
Moto7451 2y ago
Regarding the potential to annoy small businesses, it’s actually pretty easy to hire a firm to represent you in the EU. You’ll need a lawyer at some point anyway so it’s often the same firm. If we had the same requirements here in the US it would likely become the same.
- mjevans 2y ago
  Delaware / Ohio corporations? I think those already exist for 'business friendly' incorporation states. Might also be Nevada and Texas, though I'm more speculating there or recalling singular offhand cases I heard about.
nottorp 2y ago
> To sell in Europe, we must register for their tax system and nominate a legal representative. American companies? Register for EU tax system? I can buy from anyone in the US and worldwide for that matter, and as long as they're willing to figure out shipping they don't need to register anywhere, I can handle taxes myself when receiving. What "AI" did they use to write this?
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  You can’t handle VAT rebates on your own, but America lacking a VAT system itself can’t really take advantage of that.
  - nottorp 2y ago
    What VAT rebates if i import something into the EU? It says "to sell into Europe" not "to buy from Europe". In first case I, the EU buyer, owe VAT. In second case whoever buys may be owed a VAT rebate. But it's not selling any more.
    - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      Theoretically, sales tax could act as an anchor for VAT rebates.
  - mr_toad 2y ago
    > You can’t handle VAT rebates on your own Individuals (sole traders, contractors etc) can claim VAT rebates. You don’t have to have a lawyer or an accountant if you’re prepared to figure out the rules yourself.
erkt 2y ago
Tl;Dr: The author makes a strong case for broader, higher tariffs but understands it is impossible to help American manufacturing knowing that the next administration will cave to China and Wall-street and immediately move to undo everything. The solution is to work together to make American protectionism work. 1. They are not high enough: Correct. Raise them more. 2. America's industrial supply chain is weak: That is why we need to bring the factories and resource extraction home. 3. We don't know how to make it: Perhaps we can steal the IP like China? We will figure it out. 4. The effective cost of labor in the US is higher than is looks: Then raise the tariffs higher. 5. We don't have the infrastructure to manufacture: You have to build it first, This will get cheaper and easier as we continue to bring industry home. 6. Made in America will take time: Blaming permitting time and Bureaucracy is a ridiculous excuse. The federal government can override all state and local requirements here. Its a choice to slow projects down. 7. Uncertainty and Complexity around tariffs: Democrats will have a hard time undoing progress if there is movement to reshore industry. War over Taiwan seems basically inevitable and this will harden resolve. 8. Most Americans are going to hate manufacturing: Most (well a very large and non-negligible percent of) Americans are going to loose their jobs because of AI. Most of us hate our jobs already, manufacturing will pay better. There are always endless service industries...like delivering food, if they do not like supervising a robotics controlled factory. It is disingenuous to imagine a return of American manufacturing without Huge AI and robotics investments. More factories will be lights out than the alternative. The jobs will be in servicing the robots, computer systems and quality control. We aren't talking Rosie the Riveter and the author must know it. 9. The labor does not exist to make good products: This is why there must be some discrimination over tariffs and why they should not be a simple even percentage. We can choose to bring back GPU manufacturing but pass on fast fashion. And during the process of negotiation we can give up those industries we do not want in exchange for support of a China embargo. 10. Automation will not save us: The author cannot imagine a world where manufacturing is not motivated by global trade. They fail to understand that it does not matter how much more productive China is when protectionist policies prevent trade. The goal is to get America to a place where it can manufacture everything it NEEDS on its own. 11. Americans file lawsuits: Good- this will increase the quality of goods we enjoy and we can get past the disposable foreign garbage that floods our markets. 12. enforcement will be uneven and manipulated: so get on board and help to improve it, stop undermining the attempt to help this country. 13. tariff policies structured in wrong way: Really not a terrible idea to have a disparity in tariff between input goods and finished goods but it is a half measure. We need the entire supply chain from resource harvesting, to tooling, to components to final finished manufacturing if we want to ensure national security in a world post-NATO. 14. Michael Jordan sucked at baseball: Was there serious consequence to MJ trying his hand at baseball? We got through COVID. We have survived massive supply disruptions and the market has been pumping as hard as ever. If you are not currently retired it is absurd to worry about fluctuations in the stock market. And if you are, you likely invested in companies that sold out America.

by pjc50 2y ago

mapt 2y ago

When I visited China, the expats told me that recreational drug supplychains were strictly compartmentalized. There was the supply of illicit drugs for Westerners (imported by the sons of Nigerian businessmen, the cliche went), the supply of illicit drugs for Chinese people (who only dealt with Chinese people), and then there were the vast array of drugs that are completely legal to get over the counter in China without a prescription (at a pharmacy or CTM shop) that would be controlled substances in a US pharmacy. That the official line from the CCP was that China had no drug problems, no prostitution, a variety of other things†, and that there were no gay people in China; That these were all Western ailments. Urban China is a panopticon state not only digitally, but culturally. Housing is much tighter than the US, walls thinner. Your underwear is hung out to dry in clear view. "Privacy" in terms of politeness norms mostly consists of pretending you don't see or hear a thing. Neighbors generally know a lot about what each other are doing. 7% of the population are Party members, and in Marxist-Leninist systems this connotes something closer to earning a military officer commission; The Party is not trivial to apply to, the Party is strictly regimented, Party rules are held above and before the civil law, Party members are expected to be informers and have a strict lawful-good orientation from the perspective of the regime. Penalties for commerce in illicit drugs are even more extreme than the US, and due process is not bound by the same presumptions. There are lots of factors conspiring against the sort of informal US inner city street drug distribution being as big of a deal in China. Disclaimer: All my information is more than a decade out of date, and was only ever a thin slice of opinions from mostly Westerners in some first tier cities. † From an academic paper: "2 The Six Evils are prostitution, drugs, selling women and children, pornography, gambling, and feudal superstition. Criminal gangs, or triads, are often counted as a seventh evil. These vices represent impediments to modernization and throwbacks to social problems that were present prior to the Communist takeover. Elevation of a problem to an "evil" symbolizes that the Beijing regime will mount a "campaign" or "struggle" against it."

HPsquared 2y ago
That's an interesting subject. Are there any books about it?
hylaride 2y ago
> hat the official line from the CCP was that China had no drug problems, no prostitution, a variety of other things Reminds me of a book I read years ago about the Soviet Union. Officially prostitution didn't exist there either, so there were no laws on the books about it. Enforcement usually was around various "antisocial" laws and usually for the street-walkers. Crime in general was mostly fine, so long as it wasn't a threat to the state, against well-connected people, or otherwise visible. No wonder Russia got so bad after the strong state dissipated.
mcftefr 2y ago
> The Party is not trivial to apply to, the Party is strictly regimented, Party rules are held above and before the civil law, Party members are expected to be informers and have a strict lawful-good orientation from the perspective of the regime. If only... (source: am Chinese)

tokioyoyo 2y ago

Once again, want to point out how this is simply American leadership not wanting to accept their loss and move on. For the first time in the history they're not being perceived as the "global leader", and that's not acceptable from their POV. Now it's just freaking out and hoping that some extreme policy changes will change the course. From my personal experience, most people act this way when they're in distress and can't think ahead because of all the externalities.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_(psychology)#Burst https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_(psychology)#Burst
Teever 2y ago
This isn't just ego. This is an impending existential issue. America needs to increase manufacturing capacity if it wants to maintain hegemony and possibly world peace. China will soon have the ability to take Taiwan and Korea and Japan. If that happens it's game over for any American interests and perhaps democracy as a whole. Wargames[0] paint a grim picture of an upcoming conflict between China and America over Taiwan with the US barely winning at a great cost including the loss of many ships, aircraft, and the depletion of missile stocks. The Chinese have a naval production of 260 times that of America and account for an ungodly amount of global steel production so they'll be able to bounce back faster than the US can. With a lead time for producing American missiles measured in months and years it will be just a matter of time before they take the countries in the region that are critical to American manufacturing if they're so inclined. [0] https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/CSIS%20Simulation%20Results.pdf https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites...
- Bouncingsoul1 2y ago
  Hello slippery slope how are you doing?
- esafak 2y ago

rickdeckard 2y ago

> China generates over twice as much electricity per person today as the United States. Why? >> This appears to be completely wrong? All the stats I can find say that the US has about 4x the per capita electricity generation of China. I believe the comparison is absolute production, not per person. Anything else would be odd. Considering China has 4x the capita of US it would mean that in absolute terms China is producing 8x the energy of the US. In reality it seems to be roughly 2x (although both sources are a bit outdated): US 2023: 4.18 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity from utility-scale generators. Additionally, small-scale solar photovoltaic systems contributed around 73.62 billion kWh 1. China 2021: 8.53 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity -- But the staggering difference is how much of the electricity is attributed to the Industrial sector: China: 70% (~6 trillion kWh) US: 26% (~1 trillion kWh) So overall China allocates 6x the electricity to production compared to US...

ZeroGravitas 2y ago
China is also more electrified generally than the US. They only just pulled ahead but the rate of change is startling. Since 2000 they've gone from 10% of final energy being electricity to nearly 26% while the US has been basically flat around 23% and they are both predicted to grow (or not grow) at roughly the same in the next few years.
xbmcuser 2y ago
China electricity consumption is growing by 6-8% a year and is likely to hit 10500 trillion kilowatt-hours in 2025. Which at $0.10/kwh the avg is a $1 trillion dollars. Though from what I understand in China home users are charged about $0.07 and industry $0.08 so $7-800 billion a year on electricity alone. They are rapidly moving to renewable with grid scale BESS auctions avg $66-68/kw they are likely to have electricity prices at $0.01-0.02 over the next few years. I think it will be extremely tough to compete with China in manufacturing unless there is huge investment in renewable and storage systems to keep electricity prices competitive with China who are going to move on from coal over the next decade.
- jillesvangurp 2y ago

looseyesterday 2y ago

On crime they most centrically do, watch the China Show (not the bloomberg one) on youtube. One example given on the show is that Once you go into northern villages and small towns you start seeing propganda posters on why you shouldn't take drugs. Homelessness is widespread and present too but you just wont see it in city centers more on the outstkirts.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago
Police in cities will beat homeless people and get them back on buses to where their hukou is, so the homeless that remain are very good at hiding. Hostile architecture is also very common in China. But there is a lot of sub quality housing (eg in sub-basements that lack windows or good ventilation) that allow much of the working poor to at least be technically housed even in expensive cities (many restaurants also provide housing for their staff in the dining area after closing, or did at least 20 years ago). The outskirts used to have more slums than they had today in Beijing, most of the slums have moved into sub-basements as far as I can tell (called the “ant tribe”). Crime really is much lower than it was a decade ago. People have more money, societal trust is higher. Drug use in clubs has always been a thing, but China differs from the USA in that their is no social support at all for addicts (so they either get clean with help from their family or they die).
torginus 2y ago
Do not watch it please unless you want to consume worldview-distoring propaganda and become more ignorant as a result. It's made by 2 American expats who gotten kicked out of China when visa-requirements were tightened, and no-skill immigrants were no longer welcome. They've become anti-China youtubers serving the hungry China-hating audience on how China is bad and a paper tiger. Instead watch this guy (https://www.youtube.com/@Awakening_Richard https://www.youtube.com/@Awakening_Richard). I'm not saying he's unbiased, either, but he's thoughtful and I think he brings insight into how the Chinese intelligentsia thinks about how the world works. But back to your point - it's oft repeated that Chinese population decline will destroy China in the long run and poverty in Chinese society. He made a video on this exact issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdRH7aPWGGc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdRH7aPWGGc The TLDR version is that about half of the Chinese population lives in desperate poverty (and are economically invisible), and just a couple decades ago 90+% of Chinese lived like this. One cannot bring about a transformation into an industrialized wealthy lifestyle overnight, but coming from the experience of the past decades, the Chinese have been remarkably effective in this, and the following decades will see these people lifted up to modern societal standards as well. By this alone, one can conservatively expect a doubling of Chinese GDP, as there will be twice as many consumers and laborers who consume and work at the level of the current workforce. This also means that China has a huge and high marginal utility domestic demand for goods, and even if sanctioned, they wont run of people to sell to.

like_any_other 2y ago

> Other than that it seems to be mostly good points, especially the overall one: you cannot do this overnight. It's annoying Americans were given only two choices - offshoring is great and let's keep doing it, and, as you say, the opposite, meth-fueled let's bring back manufacturing overnight. The kind of slow and steady protection and promotion of home-grown industry that China and most of Asia so successfully used to grow their economies was completely absent as even a talking point.

zasz 2y ago
That IS what Biden was trying to do though with the CHIPS Incentive Act. He was trying to onshore production of semiconductors in a partnership with TSMC. Didn't do him any favors, and Harris lost the state of Arizona anyway. Americans had the choice between a party that was serious about trying to onshore some manufacturing and a party that wasn't, and it made the wrong choice because vibes, basically.
- like_any_other 2y ago
  > because vibes, basically This may be more accurate than you realize. Both Democrat and old Republican party rhetoric and policies were pro-globalization/offshoring, with the occasional exception such as CHIPS (and corn subsidies). It's not surprising nobody believed they were changing direction, if for every "we're bringing semiconductors back", they heard ten "your car is German your phone is Chinese your tacos are Mexican, how dare you interfere with glorious Free Trade!"
  - jghn 2y ago
    Also one can't ignore that the GOP managed to remarked the CHIPS act as a key source of inflation, which they also managed to pin on "Bidenomics". Which was another source of "vibes, basically"
    - kelipso 2y ago
      Weren't we hearing for years about how it went to waste because Intel did stock buybacks or whatever using the CHIPS money. Now we are supposed to believe it's critical?

bparsons 2y ago

I think they conflated electricity production growth with total output. Output in the US has been flat for some time, while China has been on a steady rate of climb for several decades.

pokot0 2y ago

Can someone explain to me why EU VAT is considered a tariff, while US sales taxes are not? They both seem a sale tax to me.

pjc50 2y ago
Only people who are wrong consider VAT a tariff. Yes, importers have to pay it, but so do local manufacturers. VAT has basically the same effect as sales taxes with a much more complicated tax incidence.
- freeone3000 2y ago
  At an individual level, it’s not more complicated: it’s reimbursed instead of exempted. And if you’re charging it, it’s easier, since you simply always charge instead of maintaining your list of exceptions.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    UK VAT certainly has a complicated list of exceptions, especially "non-luxury food" (see the Jaffa Cake case https://www.astonshaw.co.uk/jaffa-cake-tax/ https://www.astonshaw.co.uk/jaffa-cake-tax/)
    - freeone3000 2y ago
      But these are per-product, not per-customer. (Businesses, charities, and some customers are exempt from sales tax regardless of what they are buying.)
charamis 2y ago
Really wondering about the same, since VAT is applied to everything too, not only imported products and services.
deleted 2y ago
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2y ago

mcv 2y ago

That is really the big problem with the current policy in the US: it's completely unclear what the policy is and how long it will last. This is not a stable climate for investment. Would you invest in a country where the president plays Russian roulette with the economy? Most corporations will wait it out. Corporations that have an established interest (like Big Tech) will bribe Trump to get the exemptions they need to continue their business. Everybody else will have to decide how much they will want to depend on such an openly corrupt system. There industries that see no problem in dealing with corrupt regimes.

Moto7451 2y ago

Regarding the potential to annoy small businesses, it’s actually pretty easy to hire a firm to represent you in the EU. You’ll need a lawyer at some point anyway so it’s often the same firm. If we had the same requirements here in the US it would likely become the same.

mjevans 2y ago
Delaware / Ohio corporations? I think those already exist for 'business friendly' incorporation states. Might also be Nevada and Texas, though I'm more speculating there or recalling singular offhand cases I heard about.

nottorp 2y ago

> To sell in Europe, we must register for their tax system and nominate a legal representative. American companies? Register for EU tax system? I can buy from anyone in the US and worldwide for that matter, and as long as they're willing to figure out shipping they don't need to register anywhere, I can handle taxes myself when receiving. What "AI" did they use to write this?

seanmcdirmid 2y ago
You can’t handle VAT rebates on your own, but America lacking a VAT system itself can’t really take advantage of that.
- nottorp 2y ago
  What VAT rebates if i import something into the EU? It says "to sell into Europe" not "to buy from Europe". In first case I, the EU buyer, owe VAT. In second case whoever buys may be owed a VAT rebate. But it's not selling any more.
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    Theoretically, sales tax could act as an anchor for VAT rebates.
- mr_toad 2y ago
  > You can’t handle VAT rebates on your own Individuals (sole traders, contractors etc) can claim VAT rebates. You don’t have to have a lawyer or an accountant if you’re prepared to figure out the rules yourself.

erkt 2y ago

Tl;Dr: The author makes a strong case for broader, higher tariffs but understands it is impossible to help American manufacturing knowing that the next administration will cave to China and Wall-street and immediately move to undo everything. The solution is to work together to make American protectionism work. 1. They are not high enough: Correct. Raise them more. 2. America's industrial supply chain is weak: That is why we need to bring the factories and resource extraction home. 3. We don't know how to make it: Perhaps we can steal the IP like China? We will figure it out. 4. The effective cost of labor in the US is higher than is looks: Then raise the tariffs higher. 5. We don't have the infrastructure to manufacture: You have to build it first, This will get cheaper and easier as we continue to bring industry home. 6. Made in America will take time: Blaming permitting time and Bureaucracy is a ridiculous excuse. The federal government can override all state and local requirements here. Its a choice to slow projects down. 7. Uncertainty and Complexity around tariffs: Democrats will have a hard time undoing progress if there is movement to reshore industry. War over Taiwan seems basically inevitable and this will harden resolve. 8. Most Americans are going to hate manufacturing: Most (well a very large and non-negligible percent of) Americans are going to loose their jobs because of AI. Most of us hate our jobs already, manufacturing will pay better. There are always endless service industries...like delivering food, if they do not like supervising a robotics controlled factory. It is disingenuous to imagine a return of American manufacturing without Huge AI and robotics investments. More factories will be lights out than the alternative. The jobs will be in servicing the robots, computer systems and quality control. We aren't talking Rosie the Riveter and the author must know it. 9. The labor does not exist to make good products: This is why there must be some discrimination over tariffs and why they should not be a simple even percentage. We can choose to bring back GPU manufacturing but pass on fast fashion. And during the process of negotiation we can give up those industries we do not want in exchange for support of a China embargo. 10. Automation will not save us: The author cannot imagine a world where manufacturing is not motivated by global trade. They fail to understand that it does not matter how much more productive China is when protectionist policies prevent trade. The goal is to get America to a place where it can manufacture everything it NEEDS on its own. 11. Americans file lawsuits: Good- this will increase the quality of goods we enjoy and we can get past the disposable foreign garbage that floods our markets. 12. enforcement will be uneven and manipulated: so get on board and help to improve it, stop undermining the attempt to help this country. 13. tariff policies structured in wrong way: Really not a terrible idea to have a disparity in tariff between input goods and finished goods but it is a half measure. We need the entire supply chain from resource harvesting, to tooling, to components to final finished manufacturing if we want to ensure national security in a world post-NATO. 14. Michael Jordan sucked at baseball: Was there serious consequence to MJ trying his hand at baseball? We got through COVID. We have survived massive supply disruptions and the market has been pumping as hard as ever. If you are not currently retired it is absurd to worry about fluctuations in the stock market. And if you are, you likely invested in companies that sold out America.