March 22, 2020

"President Trump has sent a letter to North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, expressing his willingness to help the North battle the coronavirus, North Korea said on Sunday."

"'I would like to extend sincere gratitude to the U.S. president for sending his invariable faith to the Chairman,' said Kim Yo-jong, the North Korean leader’s sister and policy aide.... Ms. Kim lauded Mr. Trump’s decision to write the letter as 'a good judgment and proper action.' In the letter, Mr. Trump 'wished the family of the Chairman and our people well-being,' Ms. Kim said, referring to his brother by one of his official titles. According to Ms. Kim, Mr. Trump also explained his plan to move relations between the two countries forward and 'expressed his intent to render cooperation in the anti-epidemic work, saying that he was impressed by the efforts made by the Chairman to defend his people from the serious threat of the epidemic.'"

The NYT reports.

156 comments:

Darkisland said...

Good for our president.

This is the kind of thing we hired himto do

John Henry

rhhardin said...

Working more than one problem at once.

Lucien said...

Sounds like President Trump found something with a high expected benefit to cost ratio and pulled the trigger.

Howard said...

Your man is kicking ass and taking names.

Charlie Eklund said...

Good move by President Trump. Although North Korea remains tightly tied to the PRC, the catastrophic reaction of the Chinese government to their outbreak may provide the opportunity for the United States to insert a wedge between the PRC and North Korea.

At least, it’s worth a shot, and God bless President Trump for seeing that and acting on it..

Bob Boyd said...

I saw a joke that went something like this:

North Korea Coronavirus cases.

8:00am 1
8:10am 0

9:30am 1
9:45am 0

10:20am 1
10:27am 0

12:50pm 1
1:05PM 0

Jim said...

I"m reading Sister Queens, a biography of Katharine of Aragon and Juana of Spain. It's great. What I've noticed is that heads of state have included this sort of flowery bullshit language in the comms for centuries. It's probably best to read these centuries later, otherwise people will accuse Trump of being insufficiently belligerent to a dictator.

chickelit said...

Chuck said...So just to be clear; “Coronavirus” and “Impeachment” together we’re an unfair and impossible burden on Trump.

You're an unfair burden on President Trump but not an impossible one. Chuck you farly.

GatorNavy said...

He also reached out to Al Sharpton. Curious and curiouser.

mockturtle said...

Trump is shrewd enough to realize that this is not the time to burn any bridges.

David Begley said...

Rocket Man fired some missiles into the ocean yesterday. Thanks for your help!

Bob Boyd said...

Every mask shipped from Ohio to North Korea saves two lives.

Skeptical Voter said...

Trump's "invariable faith if our leader (Little Rocket Man)".

Well I suppose that's one way to look at it---especially if you're related to Lil Kim.

OTOH if you see someone in need, and you can make a gesture, it's one way to build relationships. The offer doesn't cost much, and it might pay dividends.

Skeptical Voter said...

Excuse me--that's faith IN our leader.

Narayanan said...

Governor Cuomo and Governor Newsom have also been praising Trump for his assistance.

Cuomo could be nominated by DNC.

Nichevo said...


Howard said...
Your man is kicking ass and taking names.

3/22/20, 10:00 AM



He's your man too, Howard. Unlike Obama, PDT seeks to be, and is, the president of all the American people.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Maybe our dear leader should demonstrate some competence dealing with our problems before attempting to help the N. Koreans, who have previously run rings around him over the nukes.

China is much better positioned to help. Even Italy is better positioned to help: Air Force moves 500K coronavirus test swabs from Italy to US

Jamie said...

ARM, ARM... Italy is probably on the downward side of the curve now, just like China (we are told). That doesn't mean it's improper for the US president to think beyond the moment and see what else needs or will need to be done. I, for instance, have a virtual book club to organize for Wednesday. Should I not do that simply because I also and more immediately need to keep the laundry moving?

bagoh20 said...

Being in constant lock-down for decades, I'd expect that N. Korea is one of the safest places to be, at least from Coronavirus. They certainly have that lock-down economy well established.

bagoh20 said...

Due to this pandemic, all nations of the world should aspire to the N.Korean model. "If it saves just one life..."

Lurker21 said...

Being in constant lock-down for decades, I'd expect that N. Korea is one of the safest places to be, at least from Coronavirus. They certainly have that lock-down economy well established.

Not if they keep up the mass rallies, communal gymnastics, and military parades.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Jamie said...
Italy is probably on the downward side of the curve now


Not sure this is correct, the number of new cases in Italy is still rising, if not exponentially certainly not linearly.

Tommy Duncan said...

Trump reaches out in a gracious communication to the NK leader.

The predictable progressive response: "Orange man bad."

You guys on the left need to raise your game to keep up with Trump.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

In the same way, Trump was already working on banning flights from China while Congress was passing the “no travel ban” legislation. Tell me again what “leaders” the minions in Congress are. Just like he’d already met with pharmacy execs in February putting them in the current position of having actual therapies and biological to test now. Next month we will learn something else the press overlooked by Trump was doing while the sniping and criticism was all Congress had to offer.

roesch/voltaire said...

Meanwhile Russia is sending a hundred doctors to Italy--cazy world in choice of who is helping whom.

Mary Beth said...

I got confused at "Ms. Kim said, referring to his brother by one of his official titles." Who is the he that "his" refers to in "his brother"?

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

He she problem at the Times. I saw that.

Nichevo said...

ARM said...

China is much better positioned to help. Even Italy is better positioned to help: Air Force moves 500K coronavirus test swabs from Italy to US


This is the sort of thing you do which makes me despise you. Explain the part where "Italy helped." The swabs were not Italian property given to us, they were US Armed Forces property, stockpiled in Italy (or perhaps brought to Italy for the crisis), which have now been brought home.

Also, they are not test kits, merely the disposable applicators to obtain samples for use in tests. They are the Q-Tip, not the Petri dish.

BTW China isn't giving those supplies, they're selling them.


Now, do you think you could try to improve? This would help us both avoid annoying Meade, your fascist enemy.

Darkisland said...

I now see Jamie got there first.

Still, a point that bears repeating

John Henry

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

White House Enlists Military to Import Swabs for Coronavirus Tests

"COPAN (which stands for COllection and Preservation for ANalysis) was founded in 1979 by the late Giorgio Triva in Mantua, Italy."

Italy has a sophisticated medical devices industry, which has been of benefit to the US.

robother said...

Mary Beth: 'Who is the he that "his" refers to in "his brother"?'

And who are you, a mere mortal, to question the NYT use of a pronoun? Careful, you risk cancellation by the Woke.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Trust that R?V has the inside track on Putin!

BUMBLE BEE said...

bagoh20... Agreed... do it for the children!

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Before attacking people personally I think a good approach would be to do some basic fact checking using Google.

These are moderately difficult times and people respond differently. Those of us who started from the position of viewing Trump with deep skepticism have seen much that reinforces that view. We should all look hard at why we were so unprepared, both medically and financially.

Narayanan said...

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/explainer--hobbled-irs-tax-agency-may-need-months-to-put-cash-into-americans--hands-12565114

Paul said...

Dear Leader Kim,

You want help? Open your nuclear sites to inspection. All of them. And all your test sites. And all of your rockets must be destroyed before we can help.

Signed,

Donald

Francisco D said...

Is ARM working every thread these days?

It sure seems like it.

narciso said...

I imagine their all tree bark diet, works wonders for their resistance, china unleashed this epidemic, and now they say we'll help,

Drago said...

ARM: "Before attacking people personally I think a good approach would be to do some basic fact checking using Google."

The guy who misrepresented the movement of US pre-staged supplies in this very thread wrote that.

Drago said...

Francisco D: "Is ARM working every thread these days?
It sure seems like it."

ARM and LLR-lefty Chuck, along with every other dem, knows this is their last chance to mount a lie-driven hoax to drive Trump from office and they aren't going to let this chance go to waste.

That's why we see people on the left/LLR-left now accusing Trump of being a murderer and those same idiots also rewriting history every day to make every other nation in the world an heroic entity all battling that horrible Trump who is trying to kill us all.

It's all they have left and Biden is a hidin' so expect an even greater flood of falsehoods and deep stater/MSM coordination to create anti-Trump narratives.

Just call it Hoax Dossier 17.0.

Nichevo said...

Dodging paywall...Yes, Italy can make stuff, I didn't claim that the swabs were manufactured here. Swabs aren't a big deal, it's basically a glorified Q-Tip.

It's nice, but I don't think it's exactly a cosmic level of "helping." I'd bet my left nut that we paid for 'em. I guess it's nice that they're not hoarding them, yet, as the article suggests is coming. It IS nice to have adequate capacity in one's own critical industries in one's own country, as the article concludes.

Also nice that we are the ones who can manage the logistics, as apparently the Italians can't overnight them so easy. I've had stuff shipped from Italy before, it's mildly comical.

Our domestic capacity is rightsized to meet predicted domestic needs, I guess; apparently it's tough to surge. Too much regulation and liability, I wot. Look at the N95 crisis-non-crisis.

I'd imagine that this state of affairs has been in play for some time. Not sure how it reflects on PDT's competence, except that he's competently taking the necessary actions to meet the need. You're not saying that Trump destroyed swab manufacture capabilities that Obama built up, are you?

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Nichevo said...

Did you actually read the article?

Who are you asking? Probably not me, as you posted seconds after I did.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Drago, Did you actually read the article? The supplies in question were manufactured in Italy.

"Norman Sharples, the chief executive of Copan’s American subsidiary, said that its plant in Italy had doubled its weekly shifts to keep up with soaring demand for testing swabs.

“You’ve got an expansion in demand and an expansion of people testing,” Mr. Sharples said. “So we’ve increased our output.”"

Nichevo said...

ARM, we can have a big discussion about the merits of returning industries and production capacity to the US, but I'm not sure that's the conversation you want to have.

bagoh20 said...

Looks like we have spike so far today up 86 deaths, but nearly all the increase or change in direction away from a declining trend nationwide is from NY which has 58 of those 86. Any extreme response should be limited to there, and resources should be directed there.

Yancey Ward said...

Shorter ARM- "History starts in early 2017".

bagoh20 said...

If, as reported, the Italian numbers are greatly inflated by classifying most deaths to the virus, regardless of actual cause, and that inflation is on the order of 88% of the deaths, then we are making a huge mistake here, based on that huge mistake there.

Bill Crawford said...

I wonder if Evangelicals Against Trump will give him credit for this "love your neighbor" attempt.

Jamie said...

There will continue to be new infections - a lot of them - in any hotspot like Italy (and therefore in hotspots here too - buckle up) for quite a while after the peak is past; but the *rate* of new infections in Italy is, I understand, going down. That's a key metric and indicates the downward side of the curve.

This said - I may be conflating Italy and somewhere else that has a declining new-infection rate - will have to check. If I've done that, sorry! But the dog needs to go to the dog park and run around before it starts raining, so...

Achilles said...

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...
Maybe our dear leader should demonstrate some competence dealing with our problems before attempting to help the N. Koreans, who have previously run rings around him over the nukes.

China is much better positioned to help. Even Italy is better positioned to help: Air Force moves 500K coronavirus test swabs from Italy to US


Since the US Armed forces had those test at a military base and someone decided we could use them here instead that sounds like a good move.

But that wasn't your goal with that post.

Your goal was to spread deception.

Even in times like this all you do is lie.

narciso said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Drago said...

More good news for the lefties who believe history began anew this morning:

In 2015 in NY state Cuomo was confronted with a 16,000 ventilator mask shortfall in NY's emergency supplies.

Cuomo and his staff declined to fill that shortfall.

According to lefties/LLR-lefties today, that decision by Cuomo in NY state in 2015 is now officially Trump's murderous mistake.

Because of course it is.

In the same way the Obiden-bama/science-y team decided they didn't need to replenish minimum ventilator stockpiles after the 2009 H1N1 outbreak which killed over 12,000 but no one cared because dreamy well-creased-slack-wearing obambi was in office.

Drago said...

But hey lefties/LLR-lefties, the good news is that Cuomo directed the money that could have purchased ventilators to a solar panel initiative!

How perfectly lefty/LLR-lefty is that?

narciso said...

largely so, but that's what cult mandates, much like in 1984, with the Malabar front, which was wiped out, along with corporal Ogilvy, and frank Lloyd nut sides with the russsians and Chinese oligarchs,

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Let's be clear who sent manufacturing overseas - the people who actually owned the factories, who were predominantly Republican. The country has been placed in a very vulnerable position by these actors. It is not the government or even the politicians who are primarily responsible here. It is the people who owned and ran the companies. No one made them seek out the lowest labor costs other than their own greed and market forces. What has happened is a national disgrace.

The other thing that has substantially increased our vulnerability is the repeated failure of the Republican congress to make substantial cuts in government spending before implementing tax cuts. Both cowardly and stupid.

Because of these two actions the US is in a very vulnerable position: dependent and bankrupt. We will survive, but as a weakened nation.

Drago said...

BTW, LLR-lefty Chuck's beloved Adam Schiff-ty is now saying publicly that no one should be blaming China for anything while blaming Trump for just about everything.

Did you know that supposedly, it is reported, 2 Nigerians, in Nigeria, died and someone claimed that it was due to hydroxychloroquine....which, you guessed it! Is now ALL Trump's fault.

I wouldn't be surprised if before the month is out lefties/LLR-lefties attempt to bring charges against Trump at the World Court for Crimes Against Humanity and mass murder.

Nichevo said...

Achilles said...

Since the US Armed forces had those test at a military base and someone decided we could use them here instead that sounds like a good move.


This was my presumption too. The article makes this unclear. We may have ordered a bunch of fresh swabs from this Copan, and used the Air Force as delivery boy. Or we may have picked stockpiles as I'd originally supposed. Or both.


But that wasn't your goal with that post.

Your goal was to spread deception.

Even in times like this all you do is lie.


Well, per Meade, I shouldn't pile on. If we like, we can deflect from ARM's shortcomings to a discussion of the lows our media has sunk to - for instance, after reading that article, one is still quite ill-informed on actual events in question. Even having read it, the actual source of the swabs, and the chain of events, is not adequately replicated. It's not a bloody "thinkpiece" whose job it is to leave us with more questions than answers.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Achilles said...
Since the US Armed forces had those test at a military base and someone decided we could use them here instead that sounds like a good move.


This is not factually correct, as demonstrated in this thread.

mockturtle said...

Achilles to ARM: Even in times like this all you do is lie.

Exactly. Just like CNN, MSNBC and the NYT.

bagoh20 said...

Narciso,

You should delete that link at 12:09. It tries to load a Trojan according to Malwarebytes.

Drago said...

ARM: "Let's be clear who sent manufacturing overseas - the people who actually owned the factories, who were predominantly Republican."

LOL

Keep it going dummy. You're doing great. Oh, he does!

ARM: "It is not the government or even the politicians who are primarily responsible here."

OMG. ARM is now claiming the government was not responsible for the Trade deals!

Really, how can it get any better than that?

Next up for ARM: NAFTA, what's that?

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Nichevo said...
This was my presumption too. The article makes this unclear.


The article is quite clear. We have in fact received multiple shipments of the swabs, from an Italian manufacturer. The air force is involved in the shipment solely because of the urgency and the currently disrupted supply chain.

Nichevo said...

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...
Let's be clear who sent manufacturing overseas


Okay, this is you forging bravely ahead with what I am unable to call anything else but knavish demagoguery. Since Meade wants us to make nice, I'll go do something else for a while, but please don't think I yield; you are very wrong, and the only question is whether you know it.

narciso said...

the castro regime is massively undercounting those infected, btw, Cuomo is starting 70,000 of the 'untested' hydroxycycline and Zithromax tests,

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

The trade deals were bought and paid for by the manufacturers. The politicians were corrupt, the company owners were traitors. The government did not, and could not, make them move manufacturing overseas. Just as the government does not make them hire illegal workers in the US.

Drago said...

ARM: "We have in fact received multiple shipments of the swabs, from an Italian manufacturer. The air force is involved in the shipment solely because of the urgency and the currently disrupted supply chain."

Shorter ARM: US buys q-tip like swabs and then moves the products around as required.

What an incredible story.

I wonder if any other companies anywhere in the world make stuff and then have it moved around the globe by the customers after the customers take possession of the product.

I mean, ARM might be able to use such a novel insight as PhD thesis.

Francisco D said...

Drago said: It's all they have left and Biden is a hidin' so expect an even greater flood of falsehoods and deep stater/MSM coordination to create anti-Trump narratives.

Their desperation is becoming obvious.

As Michael K. write the other day, "You can smell the flop sweat."

bagoh20 said...

"Let's be clear who sent manufacturing overseas - the people who actually owned the factories, who were predominantly Republican. The country has been placed in a very vulnerable position by these actors.".

I doubt they were predominantly Republican considering how high tech is dominated by lefties, but regardless of who heads the companies, the customers made that choice by demanding lower prices that can only be achieved overseas. We did that, we are responsible, and only we can change it by demanding U.S. manufacturing and being willing to pay for it. I don't think we can do that, becuase it's not slightly more. It's a lot more.

Howard said...

You all are good at rearranging deck chairs. We're glad you have something important to do during the end times.

Drago said...

ARM: "The government did not, and could not, make them move manufacturing overseas."

LOL

Tariffs on US cars entering the EU: 10%
Tariffs on EU cars entering the US: 2.5%

Gee, I wonder what a US car manufacturer is going to do with that?.....

Nichevo said...

I'll just say in conclusion that it would have been interesting to discuss the actual subject of the post.

bagoh20 said...

What probably is indefensible on the part of executives is things like fashion, where customers pay exorbitant prices for things made overseas for pennies. The margin is there, but greed overrides other concerns. Again though, stockholders ( the public) want maximum returns.

bagoh20 said...

If Gucci, or Nike, or Apple customers and stockholder insisted on domestic production, the companies would do it, but we don't require anything but affordability.

Drago said...

Nichevo: "I'll just say in conclusion that it would have been interesting to discuss the actual subject of the post."

It's clear what Trump is doing with NK. Just another poke in the eye to Xi while the Trump admin continues its economic/geo-political squeezing of the dems beloved and heroic Chinese Communist govt.

It's not complicated.

Meanwhile, sanctions against NK remain in place, US/SK/Japan military containment strategies continue unabated, etc etc etc.

ARM characterizes this as "NK running rings around Trump" because that's the talking point the dems need right now.

mockturtle said...

Narciso reports: Cuomo is starting 70,000 of the 'untested' hydroxycycline and Zithromax tests,

Let us pray or cross our fingers, whichever works for you, that there are good results!

mockturtle said...

I'm hoping these drugs are successful as they are much cheaper and more easily accessible than remdesivir.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

President Hussein killed 12,000.

bagoh20 said...

Cuomo said that 729 people have tested positive in New York as of Sunday for coronavirus, the most of any state. Of those, 19%, or 137, are hospitalized. Sixty-five are in intensive care units, and 47 require intubation.

I don't doubt those numbers, and I hope them all the best and want NY to get as much help as they need, but those numbers should not be overwhelming the hospitals of NY. 137 hospitalizations is only a few per hospital, so what's going on here?

bagoh20 said...

Have you ever seen on news reports where they will say something in a dramatic tone like "19% of Americans blah, blah, blah", like it's some kind of alarming discovery, and they ignore the real story which is that 81% don't blah, blah, blah. The 19% always supports some agenda, that is disproved by the fact of the 81%. A lot of news takes that form, and so we run around thinking things that are just not true.

mockturtle said...

Bagoh, why, oh why, do you watch news reports?!

Achilles said...

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...
Let's be clear who sent manufacturing overseas - the people who actually owned the factories, who were predominantly Republican.

It is pretty obvious the wealthy people in this country give money to democrats and own the media which is clearly on team democrat.

You and your globalist friends cannot lie their way out of this ARM.

You tried to sell us out with your free trade and open borders.

The nation is uniting around Trump.

And we see you and what you all are doing right now.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

bahoh20, your point, that the number of infections right now is not that worrying is true and it has been true for the the last two weeks that you have been making the same point. The issue is what happens going forward. If infections don't stop declining, at some point your point becomes pointless.

bagoh20 said...

Why do I watch news reports?

Chicks, man.

bagoh20 said...

But ARM, the story has not been just that hospitals will be overwhelmed. We have been hearing and seeing video that supposedly shows they are now, and have been for days, even when those numbers were much lower. There was a lot of discussion about it here yesterday, and the concerns were about something already a disaster. What's that about?

Birkel said...

ARM: "If infections don't stop declining, at some point your point becomes pointless."

Nothing like hoping for bad new to hurt OrangeManBad.

bagoh20 said...

The main effect of continuing infections is expanded immunity, and at some point that will end this before anything else can. With the growth in deaths slowing, a lot of things may have been pointless.

Birkel said...

Ventilator shortages will kill us all.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8136299/Doctors-turns-one-ventilator-nine-genius-DIY-mechanics.html

Well surely something will kill us all.
And don't call me Shirley.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

It is ridiculous to argue that the owners of the capital did not decide what was in their narrow best interests and act according, and screw their workers and the security of the US. Just ridiculous. Bagoh cherry picked a few notable liberal factory owners but most were Republicans back when the large efflux of capital occurred.

It is true what Bagoh said that much of what happened was driven by consumers and that we are collectively responsible for the now fragile state of our nation.

Anne in Rockwall, TX said...

We will never know if we over-reacted to the virus. We will only know if we under-reacted.

Drago said...

ARM: "It is ridiculous to argue that the owners of the capital did not decide what was in their narrow best interests and act according, and screw their workers and the security of the US."

It is quite beyond moronic to argue that US govt trade policy did not drive strategic business decisions regarding procurement and production.

Apparently, ARM is under the impression that Wall Street and most businesses are in the back pocket of the republicans.

That hasn't been true for a very long time.

But then again, ARM probably thinks all republicans are still spending all their time at country clubs dressed like the Monopoly man.

Has anyone seen my spats and top hat? I was thinking about tripping the light fantastic at the club this evening.

Drago said...

ARM: "It is true what Bagoh said that much of what happened was driven by consumers and that we are collectively responsible for the now fragile state of our nation."

Consumers didn't enact trade policy and we have now seen, across the globe, the reaction of the voters to the full effects of globalization in a framework structured to ensure the US was the "loser" in each and every trade transaction.

That's how you get Trump flipping 207 counties that obama won twice.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

bagoh20 said...
the story has not been just that hospitals will be overwhelmed. We have been hearing and seeing video that supposedly shows they are now, and have been for days, even when those numbers were much lower.


I almost never watch cable news or television so I am not sure how things have been presented. I do read the newspapers and this has not been my perception, the NYT and WSJ have been pretty measured. I am closely following what happened in Italy. Lombardy's hospitals have been completely overwhelmed but in Tuscany they have managed to keep infections to a manageable level. The effects are regional even in Italy once containment measures are implemented. I assume lots of regions of the US, probably a majority, will not be seriously affected. That doesn't mean that every region doesn't have to prepare. Who wants to be the political leader who's region takes the hit because of their failure to prepare?

Birkel said...

The federal government had a USPS law that made shipping costs from China lower than shipping costs inside the United States.

That was repealed by Trump.
ARM argues that globalization is a Republican issue?
I will let the Clintons explain Most Favored Nation status for China to you.

Chai-Nuh.

bagoh20 said...

"It is true what Bagoh said that much of what happened was driven by consumers and that we are collectively responsible for the now fragile state of our nation."

That's right. We are. Do you think the executives would have moved the production overseas if consumers would stop buying it because of that? We told them with our money that we wanted it to cost less, and we didn't care about where it was made. Yea, that is in the best interests of the executives, becuase the more we buy the more they make, so they do what we want. What would happen to Apple if they had to raise their prices to $2000 a phone to make them here, and their competition didn't do that?

You might be able to blame the first company in a market that makes the move overseas, but once one of them does it, the rest have no choice. I say this as a manufacturer who's only real competition is in China. I have resisted moving my production there, but it cost me more than half the market as others copied our products and sourced them overseas. Mostly, our customers did that themselves. They chose where to get it based on price alone. I was only able to stay here, becuase I don't have stockholders, and I chose to stay small.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Drago, the politicians go where the money is. If the factory owners wanted to keep their capital in the US they would have bought politicians who supported that. You are dangerously naive about politicians.

RK said...

He also reached out to Al Sharpton.

All the talk about Trump pandering to racists is true after all.

Birkel said...

ARM:
You are dangerously naive about politicians.

Also ARM:
We should expand the size and scope of the federal government.

Gripping Hand ARM:
The rich, who buy politicians, are majority are Democratics.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

bagoh20 said...
I was only able to stay here, because I don't have stockholders.


This is also why German manufacturing survived. The other half of the story is the vulture capitalists who bought and sold every US manufacturing asset they could lay their hands on. They used up the country's seed corn for personal gain.

Francisco D said...

The main effect of continuing infections is expanded immunity, and at some point that will end this before anything else can. With the growth in deaths slowing, a lot of things may have been pointless.

I think that is the British approach. It makes sense although we are doing things differently here.

No one knows the "perfect" approach, but diverse strategies will help us figure out how to handle a pandemic more effectively and efficiently in the future.

Under reacting is way too politically dangerous. We are likely over reacting, but time will tell. Once we beat the shit out of this virus, we can sit back and figure out what we did well and what we need to improve.

JAORE said...

"If Gucci, or Nike, or Apple customers and stockholder insisted on domestic production, the companies would do it, but we don't require anything but affordability. "

Damn those Republicans running Gucci, Nike and Apple.....

Old and slow said...

As of right now, NY has 22,603 active cases. This sounds like it is heading rapidly into the category of "overwhelming". We shall see.

effinayright said...

Birkel said...
The federal government had a USPS law that made shipping costs from China lower than shipping costs inside the United States.

That was repealed by Trump.
*********************************
Presidents don't repeal laws (except I think Obama notoriously tried to so with his "phone and a pen")

In any case, it makes no sense to argue that shipping costs (fuel, maintenance of the planes and boats) can be legally set here in the US and bind the Chinese. They buy and sell diesel fuel on the world market, for example.

But maybe I'm wrong.

What law are you referring to?

narciso said...

Pelosi turning blue to make sure molochs minions gets bailed out.

Achilles said...

JAORE said...
"If Gucci, or Nike, or Apple customers and stockholder insisted on domestic production, the companies would do it, but we don't require anything but affordability. "

Damn those Republicans running Gucci, Nike and Apple.....

That is probably too subtle.

The people who think republicans are the rich people and run all the corporations are stupid people and you nee to use crayons with them.

Drago said...

ARM: " If the factory owners wanted to keep their capital in the US they would have bought politicians who supported that."

LOL

Written by the "you didn't build that" and the "every bank will participate in the "2008 bailout", whether you want to or not and whether you meet the criteria for participation or not" crew wrote that.

Just now.

Drago said...

Wholelotta: "In any case, it makes no sense to argue that shipping costs (fuel, maintenance of the planes and boats) can be legally set here in the US and bind the Chinese. They buy and sell diesel fuel on the world market, for example.

But maybe I'm wrong.

What law are you referring to?"

Here's a link to an Atlantic article in 2018 which explains how the USPS gave preferential rates to China for many many years.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/trump-changes-terminal-dues-and-epacket-rates/573337/

But according to ARM, rulings/deals like this have zero impact on US company competitiveness and absolutely do not drive business decisions or behavior.

ARM is really really "smart" that way....

mockturtle said...

Under reacting is way too politically dangerous. We are likely over reacting, but time will tell. Once we beat the shit out of this virus, we can sit back and figure out what we did well and what we need to improve.

Well stated, Francisco D.

Birkel said...

wholelottasplainin'

Drago has provided the links.

bagoh20 said...

"Damn those Republicans running Gucci, Nike and Apple....."

I didn't actually pick those companies based on who runs them, I don't even know the politics of Gucci people. I was just picking three large well-known companies, in fashion and technology, and that's who came to mind first. Their politics don't matter in the argument of outsourcing. Nobody can avoid it and stay in business in most market sectors.

Michael K said...

Apparently, ARM is under the impression that Wall Street and most businesses are in the back pocket of the republicans.

That hasn't been true for a very long time.


I'm sure that ARM subscribes to the Scrooge McDuck theory of Economics.

“if you don’t like people hoarding toilet paper, then imagine how much damage it does when an extremely small fraction of the world’s population hoards so much of its wealth.”

Lots of young lefties believe that billionaires have strong rooms filled with billions in gold coins, just like the cartoons show.

I know ARM is not that young but I am not sure he has grown up.

mockturtle said...

I suspect ARM is a lifelong public employee and has no concept of the role of the private sector in our economy.

Friendo said...

BCARM,

You've gone from plausible contrarian to ridiculous puppet of unsustainable and incoherent arguments. Jeezuz. Get a grip.

Kai Akker said...

Kim has a price. Let's authorize the Federal Reserve to pay it and acquire North Korea. Then we would have a nice Launchpad for China regime change.

Drago said...

Kai Akker: "Kim has a price. Let's authorize the Federal Reserve to pay it and acquire North Korea. Then we would have a nice Launchpad for China regime change."

Outstanding.

Gentlemen, Kai is exactly the kind of out of the box go-getter we've been looking for to lead our Asian Urban Assault Vehicle program.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Attacking the messenger is never a good look. It makes you appear closed to rational argument. Provide arguments. Dispute with facts and data. If vitriol is all you have then you really have nothing.

If you don't believe that factory owners looked to make a quick buck for themselves at the expense of the country by moving their factories to China show the data that refutes that point.

narciso said...

that was the group of baddies in the 5th fast and furious film, north korea, has coal, which the Russians need, food isn't really a consideration when it comes to the kim dynast,

narciso said...

yes it's on paper holdings, not liquid wealth, while they tap their Chinese made ipods, they make these pronouncements,

it's rather striking how the Joseon dynasty, which was the longest lasting in Korean history, had nuanced relations with the Chinese regimes,

pacwest said...

Under reacting is way too politically dangerous. We are likely over reacting, but time will tell. Once we beat the shit out of this virus, we can sit back and figure out what we did well and what we need to improve.

Good point, but also worry about the long term over reactions. After this is over are we going to demand the medical establishment double it's capacity permanently "just in case"? And there are going to be a lot calls for a government takeover of healthcare based on the once in a hundred years event.

We drove around town today looking at businesses (pop 150K). The large indoor mall that I've never seen less than a thousand people in on a Sunday afternoon had less than a hundred cars parked in the lot. I'll bet half of those were employees. Very worrying.

pacwest said...

@bagoh
It sounds like our businesses were at least similar. Most years we had a couple of big contracts going that amounted to 1/4 to 1/2 of our yearly revenue. Most had penalty clauses. I can't imagine being in that situation right now. I imagine you are taking a pretty big hit. Have you run into supply problems yet?

effinayright said...

Birkel said...
wholelottasplainin'

Drago has provided the links.
*********************

OK. So it wasn't a "law" that Trump "repealed". What happened was the rise of e-commerce, which upended years of American advantage in shipping TO China, based on the regs of the Univeral Postal Union, a *treaty* we entered into more than a century ago.

See this, from Wikipedia:


Shifting balances and the United States
In 2010, the United States was a net sender because it was mailing goods to other countries. That year, the United States Postal Service made a $275 million surplus on international mail.[17] In addition, the UPU system was only available to state-run postal services. Low terminal dues gave the United States Postal Service an advantage over private postal services such as Fedex and DHL. To protect its profits on sending international mail, the United States voted with the developing countries to keep terminal dues low. They were opposed by the German Bundespost and the Norwegian Post, which wanted to increase terminal dues.[15]

However, the low terminal dues backfired on the United States due to shifts in mail flows. With the growth of e-commerce, the United States began to import more goods through the mail. In 2015, the United States Postal Service made a net deficit on international mail for the first time. The deficits increased to $80 million in 2017.[17] The UPU established a new remuneration system in 2016,[18] a move that the United States Department of State said would "dramatically improv[e] USPS's cost coverage for the delivery of ... packets from China and other developing countries." However, the Chairman of the Postal Regulatory Commission disagreed.[19]

2019 Extraordinary Congress
With the outbreak of the China–United States trade war in 2018, the issue of terminal dues was pushed into the forefront. Americans complained that mailing a package from China to the United States cost less than mailing the same package within the United States. At the time, the UPU's Postal Development Indicator scale was used to classify countries into four groups from richest to poorest. The United States was a Group I country, while China was a Group III country, alongside countries like Mexico and Turkey that had similar GDP per capita. As a result, China paid lower terminal dues than the United States.[19]:38 The Donald Trump administration complained that it was "being forced to heavily subsidize small parcels coming into our country."[20] On 17 October 2018, the United States declared its withdrawal from the UPU, effective one year later, when it would self-declare the rates charged to
other postal services.[21]

The Universal Postal Union responded in May 2019 by calling, for only the third time in its history, an Extraordinary Congress for 24–26 September 2019.[22] The members voted down a proposal submitted by the United States and Canada,[23] which would have allowed immediate self-declaration of terminal dues.[24] The UPU then passed a Franco-German compromise to allow self-declared terminal dues of up to 70% of the domestic postage rate, phasing them in from 2021 to 2025. However, countries receiving more than 75,000 metric tons of letter mail could move to self-declared rates on 1 July 2020. Trump adviser Peter Navarro declared that the agreement "more than achieved the President's goal," and UPU Director Siva Somasundram called it "a landmark decision for multilateralism and the Union."[25][26]

**********
So, no "repeal", but a classic Trump negotiation tactic --threatening to walk out, and instead making a deal.

Nichevo said...

ARM said...



If you don't believe that factory owners looked to make a quick buck for themselves at the expense of the country by moving their factories to China show the data that refutes that point.



Refute what? You would have to at least pretend to define your terms.

Drago said...

ARM: "If you don't believe that factory owners looked to make a quick buck for themselves at the expense of the country by moving their factories to China show the data that refutes that point."

LOL

I'll bet you are the "sharpest" lefty at the coffeeshop (low bar), aren't you?

You are making an assertion: factory owners looked to make a quick buck for themselves at the expense of the country by moving their factories.

So go ahead and prove that.

I'm especially interested in what data you will use to demonstrate state of mind.

Show your work ARM! Why, its all so obvious according to you that I'll bet the "evidence" is just growing on trees everywhere!

pacwest said...

If you don't believe that factory owners looked to make a quick buck for themselves at the expense of the country by moving their factories to China show the data that refutes that point.

Anecdotal, but I think it is scalable. Buying American didn't become a problem for me until the late 90's but I held on til the 00's. I was forced to buy cheaper Chinese goods or I wouldn't have been able to compete. My margins were 7 to 8% less without making the change. My COGS were reduced 25% and more by making that move. My bottom line didn't increase, I had to lower prices to get the jobs.

Example: Plywood and particleboard. In the 90's the Chinese started to buy American forest products and ship them out to floating factories 200 miles offshore to manufacture ply and pb and ship them back at way below American pricing which had all sorts of regulation. God knows what was extruded out of the backend of those Chinese manufacturing ships, but the goods were a whole lot cheaper. 40% in some instances.

If you want make the argument that foreign goods should have never been allowed into the US go ahead, but that cat was long out of the bag before I had to deal with it. If you want to argue that profit is bad, good luck with that. Republicans didn't just get together one day and decide they were going to rape the American economy.

Michael K said...

Some of the Chinese advantage in manufacturing costs resulted from cartels selling below cost to drive US sources out of business. That especially happened in pharmaceuticals.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

pacwest said...
Republicans didn't just get together one day and decide they were going to rape the American economy.


Straw man. A lot of people in competition with each other engaged in a race to the bottom without concern for the long term health of the union produces the same outcome. And most were members of that liberal bastion the Chamber of Commerce. Jack Welch and his ilk were not Democrats.

Tool manufacturers are a sad example. Germany has done everything it can to protect its tool making capability. Our companies were sold or started rebranding Chinese products. We make a small fraction of the tools we once did even though every industry is dependent on them. This one change dramatically decreased our ability to stand independently.

bagoh20 said...

pacwest: "Have you run into supply problems yet?"

Not yet, but we don't import much. We get some raw material from Taiwan and Korea, but otherwise, we make our products 100% in house from scratch. We, cut, bend, weld, finish and assemble metal, and we mold our own plastic, and the stuff we don't do in house mostly comes from other local suppliers.

FullMoon said...

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
·
20h
Thank you!
Quote Tweet
Ryan Fournier
@RyanAFournier
· 20h
Here's some facts.

1) Trump did not cut funding for the CDC. It has increased since he took office.

2) Trump did get rid of the NSC Pandemic unit.

3) Trump did not call the China Virus a hoax.

4) Trump did not silence scientists, China did.

RT if you're tired of fake news!
Show this thread

sinz52 said...

Did Trump reach out to the leader of any democratic nation first before reaching out to this monster in North Korea?

Italy is suffering terribly from the coronavirus. What makes North Korea more deserving than Italy?

Anyone who would use a worldwide pandemic to score geopolitical points is a monster too.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Another example is Jack Welch. He was held up by Republicans for decades as the epitome of the US businessman. GE is now a train wreck, will probably never recover. We were sold a bill of goods, a few got filthy rich and everyone else got screwed.

pacwest said...

ARM,
If I understand your comment you are saying we shouldn't have let cheap foreign goods into our economy? Like I said, that ship sailed a long time ago. Blame Nixon, or more probably Clinton. Are you arguing for a closed economy or something more along the lines of what Trump is trying to implement? Or is it just capitalism is bad?

No, it's not a strawman. It's market forces. You sound like you favor protectionism at least to a degree.. Nationalism vs Globalism. You sound like Trump.

Drago said...

ARM: "Another example is Jack Welch. He was held up by Republicans for decades as the epitome of the US businessman. GE is now a train wreck, will probably never recover."

LOLOLOLOLOL

You think Jack Welch took GE into the tank?!

Too funny.

It was Jack's replacement, Jeff Immelt, who just so happened to be obambi's good buddy and pal, that completely changed every single aspect of GE's strategic plan under Welch and took GE over the cliff.

Jeff's mistake was to assume that we really had reached the end of republican history and so he hitched GE's wagon to obambi and the establishment dems. That's why Immelt was on obambi's economic advisors crew and went along with the lunatic green initiatives and everything else.

I will say this in Immelt's defense: He set GE up to be one of only 3 potential Carbon Credits clearinghouses under the Obiden-bama plans. Had that plan come to fruition GE would have made out like crony capitalism bandits!

But it didn't.

And that was after Jeff sold off key industrial units and backbone of the company.

GE Capital was spun off (had to be if GE was not going to be regulated using financial entity rules) and what was left wasn't enough to sustain the company.

But yeah, it's all Jack Welch's fault!!

LOLOLOLOL

Birkel said...

Hey look, everybody! ARM is using the arguments conservatives made decades ago as if they are novel. Give that dip shit a cookie.

pacwest said...

@bagoh
We, cut, bend, weld, finish and assemble metal

:) Different materials and skills, but pretty much the same. Casework for me. Panel processing. All the best.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Pacwest, of all the western nations Germany and a few allied countries have weathered the rise of China the best, if the goal is to retain a strong manufacturing base. They seem to be the best model. An economy largely free of the excesses of financialization, closely held companies that have a long time horizon, strong unions and a recognition of the limits of laissez-faire capitalism. Pretty much the exact opposite of everything Republicans have pushed since the 80's. Even their health system works better than ours based on the response to this virus.

Drago said...

ARM: "An economy largely free of the excesses of financialization, closely held companies that have a long time horizon, strong unions and a recognition of the limits of laissez-faire capitalism."

LOLOLOL

Sweet Jesus, it's actually getting worse!!

Germany is the classic financial colonial power by using the European Central Bank and the European Investment Bank and the Brussels crew to completely screw over the vast majority of EU members and to artificially deflate the relative cost of German goods while vastly artificially increasing the cost of goods produced by the poorer EU nations.

It is estimated that Germany experiences a 35%+ value advantage because the poorer performing nations in the EU drag down the value of the Euro which Germany then takes advantage of. Meanwhile, Greece and Italy and Spain and other nations cannot devalue their currency to compensate for the relative "expensiveness" of their goods, which leaves them in permanent economic decline.

Germany has effectively created a 4th Economic Reich which burdens the rest of Europe to Germany's benefit! Way to go Merkel!

Germany and France were also using the UK as their cash cow (only 2 nations were net contributors to the EU, Germany and the UK) which is why the EU is now in total crisis mode where Brussels has already warned the poorer EU nations that they are now officially S*** outta luck in terms of budget cuts!

Good old ARM. What he doesn't know is even more vastly vast than what he is happy to lie about, which is saying something!

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

pacwest said...
Blame Nixon, or more probably Clinton.


What about Reagan and Bush Sr. The 80's were when things really started to go south in terms our decline in manufacturing.

Drago said...

ARM: "What about Reagan and Bush Sr. The 80's were when things really started to go south in terms our decline in manufacturing."

Hardly.

The horrendous loss of manufacturing jobs came after 34 republicans and 27 dems voted for NAFTA in 1993, followed by the moronic admission of China into the WTO in December of 2001.

Giving China Most Favored Nation status as a "developing nation" was also a huge mistake which was accelerated in the 1990's and codified in 2001 again.

Mary Beth said...

And who are you, a mere mortal, to question the NYT use of a pronoun? Careful, you risk cancellation by the Woke.

I'll take may chances of being ignored by them x 2. I'm a white, female boomer who lives in the South and leans right. As far as they're concerned, I'm already past my cancellation date.

John henry said...

Blogger Drago said...

The horrendous loss of manufacturing jobs

One of the things I find annoying about this debate is the conflation of manufacturing jobs and manufacturing output. They bear little relationship.

From 1946 to 2010 (Years from memory) US manufacturing output per capita grew almost 6 times. That is adjusted for inflation. That is adjusted for population growth. In all that period, boom years and bad years, there were only a few years where it declined year over year. When it did, it quickly made up the dips.

What has declined, is manufacturing jobs. Some of this is jobs being exported but that is relatively recent. Most of the lost manufacturing jobs are due to automation.

That's nothing new either. I'm reading "The Industrial Revolutionaries" currently and ran across this the other day talking of how Isambard Kingdom Brunel had automated block (pulley) making for the Royal Navy:

"Most of the machines bore some resemblance to Brunel’s original patent designs but had been greatly improved upon by Maudslay and Brunel working together. The labour saved was spectacular: four men could now make as many elm block shells as fifty under the old craft system of manufacture, and six men could make as many sheaves as sixty. Overall, the labour force was reduced from over one hundred to ten men, affording a huge reduction in cost, and the Portsmouth block mills were soon supplying the whole of the Royal Navy, turning out 130,000 pulleys per year."

It's automation that frees people from the backbreaking and mind-numbing toil of the factory. Automation also means higher quality (absence of variation) and lower costs than non-automated labor.

Everybody is scared shitless of robots. Not me, but then I know something about them. They are nothing new. Only the latest technique in automation that started with Boulton producting Watt's steam engine. Portable power.

John Henry

John henry said...

From economist Mike Munger's excellent Kids Prefer Cheese econ blog:

Friday, April 08, 2016

Hey Trump and Sanders:

Manufacturing's share of total employment peaked in 1943!!!


I got these data series from Fred, but I am too dumb to get Fred to graph the ratio so I put them into Excel, created the ratio, graphed it and exported to this blogpost. Lost the horizontal axis somewhere along the way but it runs from January 1939 to March 2016. The exact variables are listed below the graph.

People, Manufacturing share of Total non farm employment peaked in November of 1943 (the great war!!) and has by and large been falling ever since.

It's hard for me, given the historical trend, to put too much blame for the relative shrinking of manufacturing employment on the rise of China, or NAFTA, because it was happening in the 1960s and 1970s well before either of these things happened.


https://mungowitzend.blogspot.com/2016/04/hey-trump-and-sanders-manufacturings.html

Graph at the link

John Henry

John henry said...

Fred is a databass of the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis. They have a wealth of economic data covering most anything you could want.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/source?soid=89

John Henry

John henry said...

Most people, when they talk of the manufacturing jobs exported overseas, mean unskilled labor. Where a kid out of high school, with no special skills, can start work on Monday and be 80% as competent as they will ever be by Friday.

For the most part, these are shit jobs. Outside of non-competitive industries like auto, rubber, steel and some others, where the manufacture can charge monopoly-like prices and unions can command monopoly-like wages, the pay isn't much more, if anymore than a cashier at Walmart might make.

Here's a video that looks at a Seagram's whiskey bottling line from the late 60s and compares it to a modern line, machine by machine.

Tell me which of the Seagrams jobs shown you'd like to spend 40 years of your life at. Dumping cases? Putting labels? Palletizing cases?

The Seagrams line is running about 50 bottles a minute with a couple dozen operators. A modern line will run 500 to 1000 bottles per minute with 3-4 operators.

If we are talking about unskilled factory labor, I've seen enough of it to say phooey. Good riddance to most of those jobs.

John Henry

JAORE said...

Another example is Jack Welch. He was held up by Republicans for decades as the epitome of the US businessman. GE is now a train wreck, will probably never recover.

You do know Welch retired from GE 19 years ago, right? If not you are a moron spouting (nearly) 20 year out-of-date information that doesn't even support the point you fail to make.

Or you are a dishonest prick who cares not for facts.

John henry said...

Blogger Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

The 80's were when things really started to go south in terms our decline in manufacturing.

Got any numbers?

I do

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS

John Henry

John henry said...

Walmart cashier might be a bad example. My local walmart doesn't have any.

Its all self-checkout

My son told me that Sam's Club doesn't even have self-checkout anymore.

You use your phone to scan each item as you put it in your cart. It gets totaled and debited from your card automatically as you leave the store.

I've not seen it yet but my son says it works really well.

John Henry

John henry said...

Forgot the seagrams link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOAfnE8KSxo&t=3s

John Henry

Rusty said...

Why did companies outsource manufdacturing to China?
Regulation.

pacwest said...

@John Henry
Interesting stuff. I was suprised to see the productivity rise slowing so much after the steep rise in the 90's. The manufacturing job loss tracks with my own experience. I've stated before that my direct labor costs went from 35% of COGS to 12% over 40 years.

Question for you if you revisit this thread. I'm not sure of your business, assembly lines, CNC, but the question is where is most of the equipment for these coming from? I adopted CNC in the early 90's and there were no reliable American made machines then. Germany or Italy were the options.

Paco Wové said...

"It's automation that frees people from the backbreaking and mind-numbing toil of the factory"

Somehow I doubt the men so "liberated" saw it that way. I get your point - automation like this is inevitable and necessary - but let's not sugarcoat the downside.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

John Henry you always drag out the same fallacy in every argument. Real output of US manufacturing has been flat for two decades. What has been the change in China's real output over the same time period? Manufacturing is a competition, we are losing, badly.

Darkisland said...

Arm,

Not according to Fred.

Look at the chart I linked.

Can you share any numbers or data?

No? Didn't think so. You never do

John Henry

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

I looked at the chart. Flat for the last 2 decades. Go and look at China's output and tell me if they are in any way comparable. You guys are living in a fantasy world. We are getting our ass handed to us on a plate and you want to pretend that everything is fine.

Drago said...

John Henry: "One of the things I find annoying about this debate is the conflation of manufacturing jobs and manufacturing output. They bear little relationship."

This is probably THE most important point, but one doesn't have time to make ALL the good points a part of every single discussion.

But that one I should have addressed.

pacwest said...

Productivity growth in China is similar to the US for the past 20 years. I guess with current technology productivity reaches a plateau after a certain saturation point.

You're always long on partisan criticism and short on proposed solutions. What little I can glean from your comments I'm amazed you aren't a Trumpist of the first order. Nationalism. Return critical manufacturing to the US to the greatest extent possible. America first.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

pacwest said...
Productivity growth in China is similar to the US for the past 20 years.


Did any one say it wasn't. Growth in output is vastly different.

You're always long on partisan criticism and short on proposed solutions.

I gave what I thought was a blueprint for improving manufacturing competitiveness. All I got in return was a screed about how bad Germany is. Before we look to return critical manufacturing we should ask why the hell it left in the first place. That question has to be addressed first or it will just happen again. If we throw money at factory owners what is to stop them selling us out again?