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China: covid numbers simply stopped being made public.
The more pertinent question we should be asking is how this COVID fallout will affect the Chinese manufacturing capacity and the consequence on the global supply chain.
If the recent shutdown of Foxconn factory is an indicator of problem, this would also applies to all manufacturing environment in China. Is there a possibility of something much worse to come? I seriously hope not. https://nytimes.com/2022/11/02/world/asia/china-foxconn-workers.html
As I stated in previous posts, the lack of effective vaccines and vaccination program will continue to plague China growth engine.
Under the general heading of "There's no such thing as Free Lunch" -
For those of a younger generation, that's a saying from a long-ago time when saloons offered what was advertised as a "free lunch". Of course the saloons hoped to make up for that expense by selling more alcohol, likely of dubious quality and a somewhat higher price than usual. These days that saying suggests that if something seems too good to be true, it probably isn't true.
And so it is with off-shoring, to an extent. What at first glance looks wonderful (really cheap labor) also turns out to have some hidden costs- the inherent unreliability of that labor source due to a multitude of possible problems. Nevertheless, we have chosen to listen to economic "experts" who have led us down this path.
Another not-so-obvious cost is the "all the eggs in one basket" problem. Business decision makers have chosen to completely ignore the fact that the United States now depends on a potential enemy to provide critical materials in drug manufacture which we have decided to no longer produce here in America. When a number of those "precursor" drug materials were found to potentially cause cancer, it was regarded as a minor temporary problem.
Similarly, we now rely on a potential enemy to manufacture a very significant amount of high-end consumer electronics, as well as much basic but necessary electronic commodity: memory chips, as one example, which we no longer produce domestically because the Chinese product is so much cheaper.
In choosing to obtain their primary energy sources from a potential enemy Germany and much of Western Europe also listened to those same "experts".
How has that worked out for them?
Note- I thought that it wouldn't hurt to also post this in the "Other Investing" section.
Comments
https://nytimes.com/2022/12/23/world/asia/china-covid-death-toll.html
Looking at a cynical view, a million death among the elderly would be beneficial to Chinese government so they reduce the burden of financial support.
If the recent shutdown of Foxconn factory is an indicator of problem, this would also applies to all manufacturing environment in China. Is there a possibility of something much worse to come? I seriously hope not.
https://nytimes.com/2022/11/02/world/asia/china-foxconn-workers.html
As I stated in previous posts, the lack of effective vaccines and vaccination program will continue to plague China growth engine.
For those of a younger generation, that's a saying from a long-ago time when saloons offered what was advertised as a "free lunch". Of course the saloons hoped to make up for that expense by selling more alcohol, likely of dubious quality and a somewhat higher price than usual. These days that saying suggests that if something seems too good to be true, it probably isn't true.
And so it is with off-shoring, to an extent. What at first glance looks wonderful (really cheap labor) also turns out to have some hidden costs- the inherent unreliability of that labor source due to a multitude of possible problems. Nevertheless, we have chosen to listen to economic "experts" who have led us down this path.
Another not-so-obvious cost is the "all the eggs in one basket" problem. Business decision makers have chosen to completely ignore the fact that the United States now depends on a potential enemy to provide critical materials in drug manufacture which we have decided to no longer produce here in America. When a number of those "precursor" drug materials were found to potentially cause cancer, it was regarded as a minor temporary problem.
Similarly, we now rely on a potential enemy to manufacture a very significant amount of high-end consumer electronics, as well as much basic but necessary electronic commodity: memory chips, as one example, which we no longer produce domestically because the Chinese product is so much cheaper.
In choosing to obtain their primary energy sources from a potential enemy Germany and much of Western Europe also listened to those same "experts".
How has that worked out for them?
Note- I thought that it wouldn't hurt to also post this in the "Other Investing" section.
Great suggestion. Perhaps we can post our comments on @catch22 earlier post as the topic has changed direction that may affect the global market.
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/60452/ihme-covid-model-for-china-china-s-ability-to-function-properly-has-global-impacts
@catch22, thank you for the reminder.