3 ms·

Anecdote time re: Over-regulation: We had a side-hustle, automatic sorting machines. Mostly nuts and bolts, but other stuff, too. About 10 employees. By some mi

Anecdote time re: Over-regulation: We had a side-hustle, automatic sorting machines. Mostly nuts and bolts, but other stuff, too. About 10 employees. By some miracle, it managed to survive the loss of it's biggest customer (the aforementioned electroplating company). But we had to move shop. After we got a place, the city terminated the operating permit for the building. Why? Because, you see, the company that operated the building before had it filed as "metal working", so that is what the permit said. But _sorting_ metal doesn't alter it, so the permit doesn't hold! And they wouldn't issue a new one. Fun times.

sassbadger 2mo ago
Honestly, in my view it's not an issue of overregulation but a malfunctioning administrative apparatus. Too much power is concentrated in the hands of few administrators who can interpret the law according to their own vibes, leaving businesses with few options of recourse without resorting to spending money on lawyers. It's the mideval mindset in the local administration that makes it so difficult, not the regulations per se. The is a really eye opening interview with Marco Scheel from the small German company Nordwolle, where he describes the daily struggle with German administratives: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/files.lagedernation.org/lagedernation/LdN465.mp3?ptm_source=feed&ptm_context=mp3&ptm_file=LdN465.mp3 https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/files.lagedernation.org...
- close04 2mo ago
  Sadly even eliminating all bureaucracy isn't the Holy Grail of saving the local workshop. The company has to pay German level taxes, the workers have to pay German cost of living, and most business owners also want to enjoy the fruit of their labor and that fruit in Germany usually wears a Porsche badge. These are the obvious and "easy" ones but probably not the most important ones. The difficult problems are the entire ecosystems, supply chains, and tight integration that are just on very different levels between Germany and China. Every part of the supply chain has to be optimized or else it eats into the margins. China is a beast at "extreme supply chain micro-optimization". It would take decades to build equivalent ecosystems elsewhere, and in the meantime implement artificial barriers to keep China less competitive on Western markets. This is true for all of Europe and the Western world at least. This video [1] highlights just how big a gap there is between China and everyone else. [1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/h7McXnWRCQY https://www.youtube.com/shorts/h7McXnWRCQY
  - pjmlp 2mo ago
    Agreed, however there are only two ways to handle this, race to the bottom and then everyone has Chinese working conditions and salaries, or it is about time that we build our walls and kind of, no kidding, make each country great again, which is why right wing parties are going up all over the place. I still remember how it was in most European companies before we started offshoring everything, textil, shoes, TVs, mobiles, software,..., the whole bunch, with the colonist mindset that of course the "slaves" would never have the skills to master the end to end production themselves, what a joke, naturally as humans they have exactly the same skills. And it isn't only China of course, we even do it among ourselves across European countries, for the new factory in some random eastern country, a bunch of folks in western Europe join the job center line. All for the bank accounts for the managers of course, as employees get thrown around like pawns in the MBA chess, more akin to mediaeval lords managing their feudal servants.
    - close04 2mo ago
      > race to the bottom and then everyone has Chinese working conditions and salaries I think it’s doable to be competitive even under Western conditions assuming you have the rest of the ultra optimized supply chains because you can find ways to support them even with just a nudge here and there, compared to when the only German part if the business is the one who says “designed un Germany”. > or it is about time that we build our walls and kind of, no kidding, make each country great again, which is why right wing parties are going up all over the place. Right wing parties are going up to say they’ll make the country great again. Can’t think of a significant time in history when these parties actually did make a country great.
      - pjmlp 2mo ago
        They didn't of course, however when they happen to have such an easy speech to sell about who is to blame about factories closing down, queues increasing sizes at the job center, no longer able to afford the same supermarket basket size even when employeed,.... It is no accident that in a way we are reliving the same uptake they had during the big depression, and there doesn't seem to be any way to counter that.
jcarrano 2mo ago
What I don't get in these cases is why they do this if they are not looking for a bribe? Just for sport?

sassbadger 2mo ago

Honestly, in my view it's not an issue of overregulation but a malfunctioning administrative apparatus. Too much power is concentrated in the hands of few administrators who can interpret the law according to their own vibes, leaving businesses with few options of recourse without resorting to spending money on lawyers. It's the mideval mindset in the local administration that makes it so difficult, not the regulations per se. The is a really eye opening interview with Marco Scheel from the small German company Nordwolle, where he describes the daily struggle with German administratives: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/files.lagedernation.org/lagedernation/LdN465.mp3?ptm_source=feed&ptm_context=mp3&ptm_file=LdN465.mp3 https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/files.lagedernation.org...

close04 2mo ago
Sadly even eliminating all bureaucracy isn't the Holy Grail of saving the local workshop. The company has to pay German level taxes, the workers have to pay German cost of living, and most business owners also want to enjoy the fruit of their labor and that fruit in Germany usually wears a Porsche badge. These are the obvious and "easy" ones but probably not the most important ones. The difficult problems are the entire ecosystems, supply chains, and tight integration that are just on very different levels between Germany and China. Every part of the supply chain has to be optimized or else it eats into the margins. China is a beast at "extreme supply chain micro-optimization". It would take decades to build equivalent ecosystems elsewhere, and in the meantime implement artificial barriers to keep China less competitive on Western markets. This is true for all of Europe and the Western world at least. This video [1] highlights just how big a gap there is between China and everyone else. [1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/h7McXnWRCQY https://www.youtube.com/shorts/h7McXnWRCQY
- pjmlp 2mo ago
  Agreed, however there are only two ways to handle this, race to the bottom and then everyone has Chinese working conditions and salaries, or it is about time that we build our walls and kind of, no kidding, make each country great again, which is why right wing parties are going up all over the place. I still remember how it was in most European companies before we started offshoring everything, textil, shoes, TVs, mobiles, software,..., the whole bunch, with the colonist mindset that of course the "slaves" would never have the skills to master the end to end production themselves, what a joke, naturally as humans they have exactly the same skills. And it isn't only China of course, we even do it among ourselves across European countries, for the new factory in some random eastern country, a bunch of folks in western Europe join the job center line. All for the bank accounts for the managers of course, as employees get thrown around like pawns in the MBA chess, more akin to mediaeval lords managing their feudal servants.
  - close04 2mo ago
    > race to the bottom and then everyone has Chinese working conditions and salaries I think it’s doable to be competitive even under Western conditions assuming you have the rest of the ultra optimized supply chains because you can find ways to support them even with just a nudge here and there, compared to when the only German part if the business is the one who says “designed un Germany”. > or it is about time that we build our walls and kind of, no kidding, make each country great again, which is why right wing parties are going up all over the place. Right wing parties are going up to say they’ll make the country great again. Can’t think of a significant time in history when these parties actually did make a country great.
    - pjmlp 2mo ago
      They didn't of course, however when they happen to have such an easy speech to sell about who is to blame about factories closing down, queues increasing sizes at the job center, no longer able to afford the same supermarket basket size even when employeed,.... It is no accident that in a way we are reliving the same uptake they had during the big depression, and there doesn't seem to be any way to counter that.

jcarrano 2mo ago

What I don't get in these cases is why they do this if they are not looking for a bribe? Just for sport?