FOXCONN moving fabs?

[thechinchinsong]

8 hours ago, thorhammerz said:

Best of luck to them - the great thing about having a long-range navy (e.g. Japan's) is that you can cut off an enemy's supply routes from half-way around the world. If China thinks they can "print" maritime tradition into existence (a process that typically takes upwards of a century), they're going to see a lot of their toys at the bottom of the ocean (or more likely, at the bottom of their port harbours). The Chinese boast about their Area-of-Denial zone stretching out from the Chinese coast... what many forget is that you don't need to place anything remotely near said coast to disrupt their supply lines to Europe / ME / Africa (most of their oil is transported by oil tanker... those Eurasian rail lines are indisputably ambitious, but they can neither run on fumes, nor can they replace the gargantuan tonnages cargo ships bring in any meaningful degree).  

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by long-range navy, since most naval vessels above a certain size can navigate a significant portion of the globe. Even if Chinese ships have something particular about them that limit their range, that's how all the man-made islands and acquisition of ports all around the world over the past several years are for. It took Japan 70 years to go from third rate to Pearl Harbor, so I wouldn't say over a century, especially if it is acknowledged that the seas are particularly important for them (i.e. Japan being an island nation depending on resources found overseas for industrialization in the 1880's to 1940's and China's dependence on maritime trade to sustain economic growth and development). I think that supply lines statement can be applied to basically every country on Earth (excluding maybe the US in certain areas), since cutting off a militarily distant trade route is possible for almost every nation in the world at this point.

[williamcll]

Reuters reported that they've considered Mexico as a target for further developments. I guess the costs to build a factory in the states remains too high.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, thechinchinsong said:

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by long-range navy, since most naval vessels above a certain size can navigate a significant portion of the globe. Even if Chinese ships have something particular about them that limit their range, that's how all the man-made islands and acquisition of ports all around the world over the past several years are for. It took Japan 70 years to go from third rate to Pearl Harbor, so I wouldn't say over a century, especially if it is acknowledged that the seas are particularly important for them (i.e. Japan being an island nation depending on resources found overseas for industrialization in the 1880's to 1940's and China's dependence on maritime trade to sustain economic growth and development). I think that supply lines statement can be applied to basically every country on Earth (excluding maybe the US in certain areas), since cutting off a militarily distant trade route is possible for almost every nation in the world at this point.

Not every nation.  Iran has been trying to cut off the straight of Hormuz for a long time now.  It is believed they will eventually do it though which is I think a major driver behind electric cars.  The straight of Hormuz mostly matters only for oil. If electric cars are prevalent they can cut off the straight of Hormuz and a lot of countries simply won’t care.  The EU and China are a short on oil and they’re pushing electrics pretty hard. The US used to be but isn’t anymore it’s not pushing electrics so hard.  It’s the small countries that need oil and don’t have electrics that would be hurt by a Hormuz closure. Britian won’t be in the EU very soon for example.  Poof. Small country.  I still don’t get that one.  Every way the math is done it’s a world of stupid.  They’re going to have to pay a whole lot just to be racist.  Look at how much the US is paying to do it.  Even bigger World of stupid there. They can get oil from north and South America but prices would go up. If I lived in britian I would be looking at electric cars. Heck, I’m in America and I’m looking at electric cars, though  for different reasons. 

[Donut417]

On 8/23/2020 at 7:11 PM, lakonic said:

The rest of the world doesn't revolve around the US. ? Wh

We still have the largest economy. So they don’t want to have issues with access. Also remember they build Apple’s iPhone. So this might be at Apple’s request. 

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Donut417 said:

We still have the largest economy. So they don’t want to have issues with access. Also remember they build Apple’s iPhone. So this might be at Apple’s request. 

The why I don’t know.  There is ample reason to at least pretend the United States even if they’re not serious about it.  Trump seems to have zero problems spending US government money and assets to do his own promotion. 

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

The why I don’t know.  There is ample reason to at least pretend the United States even if they’re not serious about it.  Trump seems to have zero problems spending US government money and assets to do his own promotion. 

Let’s be clear our relationship with China has been deteriorating for years. This is the second Cold War. Likely will be an economic race instead of just a weapons race. 

[Jotoco]

Americans are just so self centered. 

 

Moving out of China is survival tactics. Japan, Australia, Korea and many other countries are trying to lessen their dependency on Chinese manufacturing. 

 

If anyone thinks it is only because of Orange Man Bad, then you're not paying attention to the world post covid

[Bombastinator]

3 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Let’s be clear our relationship with China has been deteriorating for years. This is the second Cold War. Likely will be an economic race instead of just a weapons race. 

4 years specifically.  Or maybe 3.5

I forget when the “fast and easy to win” trade war that was supposed to take months got started. 

[mr moose]

19 minutes ago, Jotoco said:

Americans are just so self centered. 

 

Moving out of China is survival tactics. Japan, Australia, Korea and many other countries are trying to lessen their dependency on Chinese manufacturing. 

 

If anyone thinks it is only because of Orange Man Bad, then you're not paying attention to the world post covid

 

I wish there was some way to tke the governments out of the picture when it comes to trade (I know they are intrinsically linked),  but my point is I personally like the idea of my money keeping an average chinese family with food and a roof even if it is not ideal.  I and everyone in my country has access to social security, free medical,  a job, and a house if your willing to work for it.  In china many people are willing to work and have stronger work ethics than many Australians but still can't get past a bowel of rice.

 

Don't get me wrong, I am fully aware it is not a simply thing and the solution is decades in the future. I'm Just presenting an altruistic desire I have outside of the socio and global politics.

[Donut417]

8 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

4 years specifically.  Or maybe 3.5

I forget when the “fast and easy to win” trade war got started. 

Longer than that. China has started flexing its military muscle. The US government doesn't like this. While Ill admit things have gotten much worse over the last few years. It was heading in this direction regardless. We have too many people within our government who lived during the Cold War and see China has the new Soviet Union. 

 

The average American dont like China because well lets be frank, they have taken a lot of jobs out of the US. I live in Metro Detroit and its hit very hard around here. So a lot of people dont like China or NAFTA as a result. 

[Bombastinator]

9 minutes ago, Jotoco said:

Americans are just so self centered. 

 

Moving out of China is survival tactics. Japan, Australia, Korea and many other countries are trying to lessen their dependency on Chinese manufacturing. 

 

If anyone thinks it is only because of Orange Man Bad, then you're not paying attention to the world post covid

I don’t think anyone said that.  No one questioned the wisdom of going multi national. It was just that the choice of where seemed strange to some.  Leaving China completely seems unlikely to me.  Labor in China is much cheaper than the US, and the workers in China put up with stuff almost no one else in the world would. That whole dorm factory company town in a building thing hasn’t been legal in the US for half a century.  It’s considered chattel slavery.  Workers in most other countries will unionize and go on strike long before they have to put up nets to reduce the number of workers jumping off buildings. If it was India or South Korea there would be riot police and fire hoses involved.
 

Speculation of why that nation in particular was being made is all.  Not “why is Foxconn doing this thing?” But “why is Foxconn choosing that country?”

 

There is a tendency towards self centered ness in the US.  I’m not sure how unusual that is though.  It does display itself in a different way than some other places.  It could be argued that China or the EU, or Russia, or most other countries really are more self centered than the us but to do it you have to pick specific behavior situations. 

[Donut417]

2 minutes ago, mr moose said:

In china many people are willing to work and have stronger work ethics than many Australians but still can't get past a bowel of rice.

Keep in mind that China has an aging population. So im sure that has put incredible strain on families over there. Thats why they put in a two child policy now instead of one. Because they are trying to build a younger population. As a result of these issues, Im sure there suffering the same problems the US's Social Security system is suffering. They dont have as many paying in as they are paying out. As in they have too many older people who cant work and support themselves and the younger people are having to carry the burden. 

[Donut417]

28 minutes ago, Jotoco said:

Americans are just so self centered. 

No the Government is self centered. The Government is the one who figures out our foreign policy and such. Many American's would be cool if we brought back our troops from abroad and just focused on us for a long while. But we have too many politicians who have served far too long, they where there when we beat the Russian's during the Cold War and now feel we should run the world. Its a very sad thing. Personally I say screw the world and focus on our needs. 

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Longer than that. China has started flexing its military muscle. The US government doesn't like this. While Ill admit things have gotten much worse over the last few years. It was heading in this direction regardless. We have too many people within our government who lived during the Cold War and see China has the new Soviet Union. 

 

The average American dont like China because well lets be frank, they have taken a lot of jobs out of the US. I live in Metro Detroit and its hit very hard around here. So a lot of people dont like China or NAFTA as a result. 

Detroit might not be a bad place for Foxconn to go actually.  Large workforce.  Good infrastructure.   Workers are used to higher wages but one takes what is available. 
 

There is an argument that Obama let China go farther than intended before reacting.  Those China sea islands went up awful fast though. No one thought that was possible.  The issue wasn’t even that they went up, but where they went up and that they just cavilierly ignored the national boundaries of like 6 countries or something when they did it. If they hadn’t pushed the things into what was effectively air strike range of other nations and put military landing stops on those islands no one would care.

[Bombastinator]

4 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

No the Government is self centered. The Government is the one who figures out our foreign policy and such. Many American's would be cool if we brought back our troops from abroad and just focused on us for a long while. But we have too many politicians who have served far too long, they where there when we beat the Russian's during the Cold War and now feel we should run the world. Its a very sad thing. Personally I say screw the world and focus on our needs. 

The problem is that retracting creates  its own problems.  Voids get filled.  Trying to minimize those makes retracting slower.  The Afghanistan stuff was caused by a combination leftovers of the Cold War and trying to retract too fast.  A void was left and it got filled by the taliban.  Thinking things are simple and easy causes more problems than it solves. 

[Donut417]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

Good infrastructure.  

Ehhhhhh. Have you seen our roads? Granted in the area there are two major airports. Plus we have Canada access as well. But the roads are god awful. I doubt they would build anything in the city. Most manufacturing is done in the surrounding area, as far as labor force is concerned, if they need manufacturing skills they might be out of luck. Many manufacturing jobs went bye bye when NAFT was signed, and more go to China all the time. As a result skilled trades workers are actually becoming harder to find. Last I heard, we had 800,000 skilled trades jobs that were open with no one to fill them. 

 

You might argue having people trained for them. The issue is, the pervious generation told my generation that we should go to school and not consider the trades. As a result we told our kids to go to school and not consider the trades. So it would be difficult to find people with the necessary skills. 

 

 

[Bombastinator]

19 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Ehhhhhh. Have you seen our roads? Granted in the area there are two major airports. Plus we have Canada access as well. But the roads are god awful. I doubt they would build anything in the city. Most manufacturing is done in the surrounding area, as far as labor force is concerned, if they need manufacturing skills they might be out of luck. Many manufacturing jobs went bye bye when NAFT was signed, and more go to China all the time. As a result skilled trades workers are actually becoming harder to find. Last I heard, we had 800,000 skilled trades jobs that were open with no one to fill them. 

 

You might argue having people trained for them. The issue is, the pervious generation told my generation that we should go to school and not consider the trades. As a result we told our kids to go to school and not consider the trades. So it would be difficult to find people with the necessary skills. 

 

 

Good insustrial infrastructure.  Rail lines. Shipping access.  You can get shipping containers all over the world from Detroit with minimal bother.  Big ones for electronicsmanufacture are water, electricity, and shipping.  Detroit has those.  It’s also got steel shipping access which they won’t need and a lot of good robotics tech which they only might.  Road quality would be something the workers would care about. Skilled trades jobs are specific to specific trades.  They’re not making cars. 

[Donut417]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

Road quality would be something the workers would care about. 

Lots of stuff is shipped via Semi Trucks. So to an extend a business would care to. Because road/bridge closures do happen and that can cost time, which is money. 

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Lots of stuff is shipped via Semi Trucks. So to an extend a business would care to. Because road/bridge closures do happen and that can cost time, which is money. 

They are, but a container is a container.  That Great Lakes Atlantic Ocean access makes Detroit a port city as far as indistry is concerned even though it’s in the middle of the continent.  The automakers went to a lot of work to make Detroit well set up for wold wide shipping.

[Donut417]

12 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

The automakers went to a lot of work to make Detroit well set up for wold wide shipping.

Im fairly sure that all the vehicles produced here are for the US market maybe Canada, many cars are transported via rail, I know because the rail yard is located between 3 crossings and the Mother Fers always have one or two of the crossings blocked, specifically I think they do Ford and Chrysler.  Also, as a whole the US's infrastructure is bad,  for example, the port located down near New Orleans is in such bad shape, ships requiring deep water can no longer use that port. They need to dredge it out really badly and no money. Our river infrastructure is just as bad, many of the dams and locks around the rivers are in need of serious repair, again no money. Even air traffic has issues, as to my understanding the industry hasn't fully recovered since Regan fired all the air traffic controllers who went on strike. As I mentioned the roads are in poor shape here, but to be honest the state did it to its self. Basically someone figured adding more axels to the trailers of Semi's would mean they could carry more weight. So yeah, truck traffic is not only heavy number wise, but they are also heavy physically. Not to mention we dont have enough truck drivers, as it requires a special license. 

 

I think a lot of shipping 

[Bombastinator]

18 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Im fairly sure that all the vehicles produced here are for the US market maybe Canada, many cars are transported via rail, I know because the rail yard is located between 3 crossings and the Mother Fers always have one or two of the crossings blocked, specifically I think they do Ford and Chrysler.  Also, as a whole the US's infrastructure is bad,  for example, the port located down near New Orleans is in such bad shape, ships requiring deep water can no longer use that port. They need to dredge it out really badly and no money. Our river infrastructure is just as bad, many of the dams and locks around the rivers are in need of serious repair, again no money. Even air traffic has issues, as to my understanding the industry hasn't fully recovered since Regan fired all the air traffic controllers who went on strike. As I mentioned the roads are in poor shape here, but to be honest the state did it to its self. Basically someone figured adding more axels to the trailers of Semi's would mean they could carry more weight. So yeah, truck traffic is not only heavy number wise, but they are also heavy physically. Not to mention we dont have enough truck drivers, as it requires a special license. 

 

I think a lot of shipping 

New Orleans isn’t just a different part of the country it’s actually a different ocean.  Might be best shipping from pacific though.  California has the best pacific access.  It’s an expensive state though. If Detroit doesn’t have its infrastructure it’s got nothing. It’s just another midwestern town.  The automakers didn’t completely leave though so there has to still be some.  The canal system should be kept up by the federal government.  It was a major point of work during the Clinton administration.  Obama tried but he was blocked from doing basically anything by 36 rounds of fake attempted Obamacare removal by the GOP.  The DFl administrations have had trouble actually building anything for many years because they’ve been stuck with Mostly doing what is termed in multi unit housing as “deferred maintainance” and most other places is referred to as “the result of Ignoring problems and letting things fall to shit”. It has been a while since anyone has actually done much with US infrastructure. 

[thechinchinsong]

2 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Keep in mind that China has an aging population. So im sure that has put incredible strain on families over there. Thats why they put in a two child policy now instead of one. Because they are trying to build a younger population. As a result of these issues, Im sure there suffering the same problems the US's Social Security system is suffering. They dont have as many paying in as they are paying out. As in they have too many older people who cant work and support themselves and the younger people are having to carry the burden. 

People always point to Korea and Japan when it comes to inverted population pyramids, but everyone seems to forget that China is rapidly heading in the same direction due to their short sighted one-child policy. It's going to progress to be worse than what the US is going through currently since despite everything thats going on, the US is one of the most sought after AND accessible nations to immigrate to. I can't see the same thing with China. China, Korea, and Japan all suffer from such a population problem (although to different extents) have the double whammy of aging population coupled with low immigration. Countries like the US and others in Europe can depend on immigrants from Middle East, Africa, and South/Central America to keep their population pyramids slightly more balanced. The Foxconn factory shift might have these certain short term goals, but from the way things look in the long run, it makes sense no matter how you look at it to divest from China. Cold War 2 electric boogaloo and corona simply give companies further incentive to move out sooner rather than later.

[thechinchinsong]

2 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Good insustrial infrastructure.  Rail lines. Shipping access.  You can get shipping containers all over the world from Detroit with minimal bother.  Big ones for electronicsmanufacture are water, electricity, and shipping.  Detroit has those.  It’s also got steel shipping access which they won’t need and a lot of good robotics tech which they only might.  Road quality would be something the workers would care about. Skilled trades jobs are specific to specific trades.  They’re not making cars. 

Yeah, US local infrastructure might be pretty terrible lately and passenger rail is a joke, but you can't deny that US trucking and industrial rail is still going strong.

[thechinchinsong]

2 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Those China sea islands went up awful fast though. No one thought that was possible.  The issue wasn’t even that they went up, but where they went up and that they just cavilierly ignored the national boundaries of like 6 countries or something when they did it. If they hadn’t pushed the things into what was effectively air strike range of other nations and put military landing stops on those islands no one would care.

If someone told me China even considered doing those things 10 years ago I would call you crazy for a variety of reasons, but over the past 5 years, a combination of global crises and tunnel vision on Trump basically gave China a perfect smokescreen to go ahead and do whatever they felt like in their backyard and the backyards of basically every country on Earth that had some kind of usable port/harbor up for purchase.

[Donut417]

3 minutes ago, thechinchinsong said:

short sighted one-child policy.

Not really short sighted. China is vastly mountainous as a result most of the population lives in the small area. You can only cram so many people in that given area. The other issue is people are living longer, which has caused the issues. 

 

5 minutes ago, thechinchinsong said:

accessible

Only accessible depending on the administration in charge. In recent years the US has become very anti immigration. Hell even the people sneaking in are not always staying. I hear some people cross the Southern border just to cross the Northern Boarder in to Canada.