Japan, U.S. business leaders call for diversified supply chains

This is what I was saying 2-3 years, including on this board where I was heavily downvoted.

I told the smarmy globalists that concentration of the global supply in a communist dictatorship was just, um, a tad risky. LOL.

Schadenfreude is sweet!

In a joint statement, the business councils said "onshoring," or bringing production back home, is "neither realistic nor desirable," adding that the key to building resilient and "trusted" supply chains is their diversification among different nations, especially like-minded ones.

Realistic? Perhaps; that is open for reasonable minds to debate. Desirable? Exactly for whom? And why?

Logic would ordinarily suggest to us that having diverse and alternate supply chains and sub-assembly manufacturing service chains - whether domestic or international - would be a clear advantage for weathering all kinds of man-made and natural delays and disasters. Particularly those which a nation state deems necessary to carry on in spite of what-may-come.

Unless there is a clear, articulable strategic reason for a company not to onshore supply or assembly, it should not be lightly discounted during planning.

There shall be free trade. There shall be no subsidies.

Farmers in both countries would kill that idea in the crib.

Time to bring manufacturing back to the US.

Wall Street couldnt care less about Middle America. Its all about the bottom line. Even with climate change, its still about the bottom line. The greatest enemy to American economic prosperity is not China, its Wall Street.

Just ask yourself who made the decisions to wipe out U.S manufacturing in the first place? Every one of those decisions was made in the capitals of the U.S

Any initiative to divest from Communist totalitarian China is very welcome from the US and Japan.

We have seen the catastrophic results of nations and companies being so reliant on that awful regime in the past few years. Only a moron or traitor wants to continue that way.

How all of these gov'ts could allow their entire supply chains to be controlled by one country that has capability to dominate them is beyond me. Perfect example of placing short term profits over long term protection of their own people.

Time to bring manufacturing back to the US.

Mighty capitalism says that shortages and supply disruptions are opportunities. Reduce employees and start price gouging.

Trump's Legacy. This "decoupling from China" thing...just wasn't a thing before the 2016 election. Everybody was caving and caving into China. Nobody was ready to take on China. But now? It's the New Norm.

(Just Don't Remember Which World Leader Led The Charge! That's a detail to be forever thrown down INGSOC'S Memory Hole, now that these "new bosses" are extending and expanding Trump's positions as their own!)

Rather than the TPP, both nations should sign a free trade deal which states,

“There shall be free trade. There shall be no subsidies.”

There is your free trade deal right there.

Yet the central planners can’t get such a simple thing over the line… politicians are too worried about protecting votes from their privileged special interests to just do the right thing by consumers and taxpayers.

In a joint statement, the business councils said "onshoring," or bringing production back home, is "neither realistic nor desirable,"

Today the NYTimes had a huge article saying how climate change will make long-distance logistics more difficult than ever. At the same time the globalists are saying it's "not desirable" to on-shore production and instead try to exploit cheap slave labor in SEA and China.

Which one is it? Is big business just greedy? Are the chicken littles just fear mongering?

Onshoring is not desirable?

But making huge profits is certainly desirable, sharing the wealth in your own back yard should be the goal here.

This diversification is needed because China cant be trusted. Select other providers and move trade away from China. That is the basic message.

Matt HartwellToday  11:04 am JST

Just ask yourself who made the decisions to wipe out U.S manufacturing in the first place? Every one of those decisions was made in the capitals of the U.S.

Businesses in the US sacrificed jobs of US workers. Companies went to China, China didn't come to the US.

The top of the food chain in corporations and private equity funds who bought up America made the conscious decision to screw US workers in exchange for the enormous profits they made selling cheap plastic crap from China for top dollar to Americans easily manipulated to stay poor and buy up the plastic crap on their credit cards.

A reckoning will soon be coming. America and Japan has lost the knowhow to manufacture many products important to their economies.

Farmers in both countries would kill that idea in the crib.

You’re not wrong that special interest groups fight to retain their privilege, and typically succeed.

Onshoring is not desirable?

It didn't work for India or Brazil when they tried it. Autarky never works. The best path is to do things you have a competitive advantage in and sell these goods or services to buy the goods and services you don't have a competitive advantage in. Nobody anywhere is willing to pay the price for a T-shirt made in the US at US wages. And who wants to work making T-shirts? That kind of work is for a low skill workforce. If you want a high wage then workers have to produce competitive high value products where each worker add a lot of value per hour worked. Making T-shirts or cheap shoes won't pay the bills for an American lifestyle. It's just how it is.

While I usually agree with most if not all of your posts, Deset Tortoise, I cannot agree this time regarding the power of the government to regulate American companies.

The U.S. does in fact have unlimted authority over compaines, as set forth by the Commerce Clause in the Constitution. Unlimited. There are no equivocations or conditions.

The Founding Fathers loathed corporations and in fact, the Revolutionary War was more against the East India Company than the government of Great Britain, as the East India Co and the Crown were tightly intertwined at that time. Bascially, Great Britain was a fasicst monarchy and the war caused by the East India Company given monopolistic economic favor by the King over all the other investors in the colonies.

That far too many peopel seem to think companies are not subjected to the Constitution and therefore the laws of government, is very frightening. And flat out wrong.

That far too many peopel seem to think companies are not subjected to the Constitution and therefore the laws of government, is very frightening. And flat out wrong.

The US government could embargo a country and force all companies to not do business there, such as was done with Cuba, but there is nothing in US law that permits the US government to force public corporations to diversify their supply chain, to say you cannot source a given raw material or component from only one country. Stockholders and their boards have the final say on those matters. And really the government has no business involving itself in these matters. If a company makes bad choices and has supply problems as a result, too bad. Let their competitors take their business.

What the US can do and does not is enforce its anti trust laws. That would do more to improve the economy and the lives of most of its citizens than having some government agency mucking around in individual corporations supply chain decisions. Break up these big conglomerates. Oil refiners should be separated from oil development and drilling companies and be able to buy their oil from any supplier., which ever has the lowest price Refiners should not be allowed to own gas stations. Rather gas stations should be free to buy from any refiner, which ever has the lowest price. FedEx and UPS should be stripped of all their other supply chain businesses and non small package related trucking companies (most people are not aware of how UPS and FedEx have been buying up competing truck companies and getting into warehousing and order fulfillment). Tech firms and all big companies should not be allowed to buy up smaller firms with potentially competing technologies. Let the upstarts make their mark and make the existing firms step up and try to match their tech. Instead now, as soon as a new firm starts to gain attention with a potentially breakthrough tech, one of the big existing firms swoops in with a large cash offer and buys them to prevent the competition. That has to stop. Most mergers should not happen. They are anti competitive. When you have a metric buttload of small companies competing tooth and nail prices (and profits btw) are minimized and output is maximized, which is the whole point of preferring a competitive market economy to socialism. More companies, more individual decisions about their supply sources and thus disruptions are smaller and more easily dealt with. Maersk Lines for example handles about 80% of the worlds maritime commerce at some point in its movement. That should never be allowed. Break them up!

Again, there are no exceptions, equivocations or conditions set forth in the Commerce Clause. The U.S. does in fact, have compete authority to do whatever it wishes regarding business.

They can indeed tell any business to do anything they want right down to how they shine their shoes.

The Founding Fathers did this for a reaons. They knew the power of businesses to usurp governments. History and current events show they were not wrong.

Apologies for the typos. Bad allergies as usual.

With a closer look you’ll realize one day that this is only a show, all combined and set into scene only, to reach those phantasy climate goals. In short words, it’s artificial, intentional and will accompany us from now on. And making products quite a bit rare or unavailable, keeps up the high prices and profits, but now under less resource needs and production capacities. Let’s say it’s saving the planet without a real but a virtual growth, because growth of any kind is still necessary for the system. That’s the only something you can’t stop of course in capitalism, growth.

Price a Speed Queen washer and dryer or an Aerus Lux vacuum to see what happens to the cost of appliances if you onshore all production back to the US. Don't believe me? Pull up some old Montgomery Wards or Sears catalogs from the 1980s and look at the prices. The go to the US Dept of Commerce web site where they have a CPI inflation calculator that lets you take prices from way back when and inflate them to current year dollars (or the reverse). We found an old Sears vacuum cleaning out a rental and for kicks I found it in a 1984 Sears catalog. Even back then it retailed for $499. Inflate that to 2021 Dollars and it's equivalent to over $1300. You can buy a brand new top of the line Kenmore vacuum on sale for less than $499 and the new Kenny is a better appliance in every way (we have one). Just some examples of what autarky does.

How all of these gov'ts could allow their entire supply chains to be controlled by one country that has capability to dominate them is beyond me.

Because most democratic governments have no legal means to force companies to do so. It is up to companies through their shareholders to make those sorts of decisions, or not. Corporate boards reward executives for stock price and cash flow. Until very recently producing goods in China maximized both for most companies in most industries. Moving production elsewhere was less profitable and/or more risky. That perception has changed in the past couple of years. Some American companies have shifted to suppliers in Mexico and Brazil so their supply chain is closer to home. But again, those are the individual decisions of these companies. The US government has no legally enforceable way to make companies diversify their supply chains and you can be corporations would oppose any attempt by any level of government to try.

"The fact that the business circles of Japan and the United States are strongly asking for the U.S. return to the TPP is a major step forward," Nobuyuki Hirano, head of the Japan-U.S. Business Council, said at an online press conference.

Japan wanting its cake and eat it too. Bi-lateral agreements favor the US. It’s the CPTPP.

ASEAN for the win!

Shouldn't mighty capitalism being able to fix this all by itself?

If by some strange occurrence Asia Unites then bye bye US N Europe say fire power Russia alone is more than Capable for US market n human power there r two giants China and India n for nightmares there is whole of middle east so US should play its cards very carefully n gone r d days of false supremacy mindset very high time to wake up fo US or lets say the time for influence n power sharing has begun