Even a humble keyboard is now political in Taiwan Every time I attend Taiwan's Computex exhibition I'm bewildered by the dozens of vendors selling unremarkable keyboards and mice. This year, a Chinese vendor stood out from the rest because its stand included not only some lovely input devices but a large sign that reads "FACTORY IN VIETNAM." I asked why that mattered enough …
Obviously we get a curated version of these happenings while other parts of the world get the unvarnished truth. It also goes without saying they get curated versions of their part of the world too. News all over the world have their own local and domestic requirements when it comes to what to talk about and how.
They may fact check Trump but they have their own blind spots.
Don't expect the 'bad' facts about Gaza there.
I'm in the USA, and read widely enough to discern that "ESH" is the reasonable view for the whole Middle East. Not the people in the respective areas, mind, but the leadership. And, as for the state of affairs here, is there a nice place in the UK or thereabouts where a quiet retired couple with a sustaining income can get out to? Never voted for him or the party at any level in decades....
Sure there may be Chinese companies that are manufacturing some things in Vietnam, but more likely they are shipping stuff from China to Vietnam, slapping "made in Vietnam" stickers on them, then shipping them to the US. There were already some companies doing this since there were still some China tariffs from Trump's first term that Biden allowed to stand and for low margin products it is worth it even to dodge a 10% tariff.
I imagine that is quite lucrative to own warehouses near the major ports of SE Asia as demand probably skyrocketed in the last few months.
Gram for gram there's probably more profit in smuggling high performance semiconductors than there is in drugs. Smuggling comes about when a supplier can't meet a demand due to artificial restrictions on trade. Sometimes those restrictions are necessary -- fentanyl etc. are obvious examples. But if we're talking 'drugs' in the US then the real money's in non-narcotics. For example, semaglutide -- Wegovy, the weight loss drug -- is on patent, a government enforced monopoly -- which means that we in America have to pay about $1000 a month for this. It can be made by a compounding pharmacy so there's plenty of scope for an enterprising supplier to find a way to satisfy the market. (Another, off-patent, drug that's widely prescribed is Eliquis, costs about $1200 a month.)
The Chinese are, above all, a nation of entrepreneurs. Wave money at them and they'll supply you with anything they can. We used to emulate them but apparently the notion of being 'in trade' is getting the same sort of tacky reputation that it had back in Victorian England -- the money's OK but its not the sort of thing that nice people do.
There are already plenty of compounding pharmacies in the US, and they were for quite some time producing much cheaper versions of semaglutide with government approval since there were shortages of the branded drugs. Those shortages recently ended and so the permission for compounding pharmacies to produce them.
But it seems easier for one or more of them to continue producing it on the sly, the kind of companies whose owners who care not for the law or figure that if they're caught they'll buy a few million of Trump's crypto coin and the FBI will suddenly stop investigating them. They can sell it into the back door of the kind of doctors who were happy to write script after script for oxy despite the harm to patients because they wanted to rich, until the Feds started cracking down on that. Why would they import it from China and increase the risk of getting caught and penalties if they are - given that with the tariff war customs will likely be examining shipments from China a lot more closely than usual and treating people trying to cheat the tariffs harshly.
>” the notion of being 'in trade' is getting the same sort of tacky reputation that it had back in Victorian England”
It is worth remembering ping Victoria reigned for a long time, much of the tacky reputation and Tory ruling class mindset has its roots in the late Victorian era when people were living off the wealth created by those who were “in trade” in the early Victorian era.
It could be argued that we only won WWI and WWII because a few people in government realised that we needed “in trade” innovation, not just people who liked to ride horses and order people to run at cannons…
I heard at university that the first generation of German industrialists sent their sons to technical college to learn to become better industrialists. Their British counterparts sent their sons to Eton to learn to become country gentlemen.
We still see the attitude that the best person to put in charge of anything is someone who knows nothing about it. Being "in trade" is seen as inferior, although that can be overlooked if you make lots of money, preferably without actually making anything.
My respect for James Dyson, plunged when he turned into a well heeled member of the rightwing establishment. If you read the interviews etc. about his life before Dyson became a successful and profitable company, you would have thought he would be more supportive of social justice and equity.
"Wouldn't it be funny if the drug smuggling routes are used to smuggle stuff pass tariffs?"
Don't forget that that the Boston Tea Party was caused by the **abolition** of tariffs on tea, thereby putting the tea smugglers out of business. And possession of a keyboard is not an indictable offence, unlike possession of a kilo of heroin.
> possession of a keyboard is not an indictable offence
Seems to be a crime at Amazon. Now predicting near 3 weeks for an in-stock(?) Das Keyboard. 2 weeks to get word to the furthest Amazon warehouse in the US, and now UPS is predicting another week on the road. We had just as good service when it was literal Mail Order.
The cause of the Boston Tea Party is possibly relevant today.
Remember, the issue was the British government trying to maintain empire and showing favouritism to the East India Company, in a bid to stop smuggling of Dutch tea into England and to stem the losses of the East India Company.
It will be interesting to see if Trump singles out Tesla/Elon with favouritism with respect to tariffs etc. which are not extended to the other manufacturers…
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