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'We Currently Have No Container Ships,' Seattle Port Says

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232 points pseudolus | 3 comments | 10 May 25 15:49 UTC | HN request time: 1.208s | source
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hintymad ◴[11 May 25 00:57 UTC] No.43950327[source]▶
A funny thing is the US could easily sanction any country in the 90s because it controlled so much manufacturing. Nowadays we can’t even sanction Houthis since they can get everything from China. Judging by the port situation, soon China can sanction us, easily.
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arvigeus ◴[11 May 25 02:39 UTC] No.43950853[source]▶
The general idea is to restore that order, and decouple from China. The problem is such things will require serious leadership, not mafia style extortion.
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smt88 ◴[11 May 25 06:58 UTC] No.43951948[source]▶
There is no universe where any set of policies will restore manufacturing to the US that can compete with China
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scrubs ◴[11 May 25 11:32 UTC] No.43953056[source]▶
Not proven - america can engage in selected manufacturing esp if profit isn't the main tool of measurement.

Also keep in mind then ... China can't be cheap labor forever either ... either it will regress or we're all be buying from Africa which is the last place there's lower cost labor at scale.

In other words it's a double edge sword for China.

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smt88 ◴[11 May 25 19:00 UTC] No.43956120[source]▶
China can have cheap labor forever because they're an authoritarian government that runs "re-education camps" with enormous numbers of people in them.
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1. scrubs ◴[11 May 25 22:22 UTC] No.43957664[source]▶
Uh huh -- eventually even the Chinese won't put up with that in the long term. If however the Chinese gov run things like Russia or NK, for example, I'd reduce TTL by 50%. When fundamental problems persist overly long it goes from problem to distortion to corruption then purifies then explodes out when least expected. Here in the US we're going through a light case of that. Somehow the things Congress is supposed to handle has come out of the morass as President Trump.
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2. smt88 ◴[12 May 25 00:50 UTC] No.43958618[source]▶
Your faith that slavery and authoritarianism can be (and will be) overthrown by citizens is not based on reality.

For the vast majority of human history, most societies were slaveholding monarchies. There's very little incentive for Chinese people to organize when the slaves are "criminals" or Uyghur minorities.

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3. scrubs ◴[12 May 25 01:17 UTC] No.43958764[source]▶
Hey you wanna go there, go there. That's an assignation more severe than anything the west would or could or want to make. Nobody deserves that. N'uff said.