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Post by Brad Nelson on Feb 20, 2021 19:18:10 GMT -8
American Factory is a 2019 documentary about the Chinese billionaire who, in 2014 (or thereabouts), bought an old factory in Dayton, Ohio that GM had shut down in 2008. Despite the high rating at IMDB and all the “must see” superlatives in the reviews, I would recommend only that Mr. Kung view this because I think the Asian-American connection would be of interest to him. But as a documentary, it’s one of those (to my mind) cowardly documentaries that just points the camera. We don’t want a Michael Moore hatchet job. But I do think a good documentary has to tell a more coherent story and have some point of view — and not just point the camera. I think the documentary is not only cowardly in this regard, but inherently dishonest. I don’t trust the impartial look given to this of just pointing the camera and suggesting that the story tell itself. Behind the scenes, you can bet they decided what clips stayed and were cut. And that can have a dramatic effect on implicit point of view even if there is no narration, as such. So I walked away from this understanding that I was supposed to have several points understood: 1) American workers are fat, lazy, and uncouth. 2) American unions (particularly the UAW) ruined much of American industry (this is only implicitly stated, and only by filling in the dots that you already know can you come to this conclusion…as I said, while trying to give the perception of impartiality, I thought the documentary was deceitful, at best). 3) Chinese workers are harder works. 4) Automation will continue to display normal factory jobs 5) The Chinese are becoming better capitalist than we are. I disagree with none of those points. But I just thought the documentary was lazy and unfocussed. So don’t waist your time on it, although I would love for Mr. Flu to see it.
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Post by kungfuzu on Feb 20, 2021 22:49:14 GMT -8
In the 1980s, I was already telling Americans that they had to get smarter and better if they wanted to compete with the Chinese. I told them then and I stand by it today.
Once again, if Americans want to beat China, they have to get very smart.
If I can view the film for free, I may just have a look at it.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Feb 21, 2021 9:21:34 GMT -8
I couldn’t find anything but trailers on YouTube, Mr. Flu. And it’s not good enough to do a free trial of Netflix just to watch it. Like I said, this documentary was not particularly enlightening. We don’t learn: 1) Why the GM plant closed down in the first place 2) Why a Chinese billionaire would want to open a plant in the United States We never learn what’s going on inside the head of dog-faced Chairman Cho Tak Wong. Mr. Flu would likely remind us that the Asian way is much more tight-lipped than the American way. This is one reason I view the documentary as either naive or just outright dishonest. There is little to no context to this. Do we really think Chairman Cho Tak Wong walked into this situation and he is “shocked, shocked” that he can’t get former UAW workers to be as efficient as the Chinese counterparts? I suspect they were just going through the motions and had automation on their minds all the way (which eventually was part of the answer, although they still apparently employ at least a 1000 Americans and have since turned a profit). They started out with Americans in management positions (including president). But they were all eventually ousted. And we get zero idea for why they were fired. We either believe they were fired for made-up pretexts (as presented in the documentary) or there was more going on. I suspect the Chinese never intended for Americans to be in management as anything but for-show in the short term. But it’s also possible that these American managers were incompetent. We just don’t know. We’re given so little true information in this documentary despite the camera being pointed somewhere all the time. Two things are possible and I don’t know which one to believe, which is why I want Mr. Flu to watch this. Chairman Cho Tak Wong and his team, despite justifiable prejudices against the American worker (they certainly weren’t saying anything that shocked or offended me), seem to do all they can to coddle the American workers — even giving them a $2.00 raise at one point despite mounting losses. So either this nicey-nice was just for show (having some master plan already in hand) or they were genuinely trying to work with the Americans. Given the slipshod nature of this pseudo-documentary, it’s impossible to know…unless one has abundant knowledge of the Chinese, which I don’t have. It’s very clear that, at least for political/public-relations reasons, they were definitely trying hard not to be “the Ugly Chinese.” I kept thinking about the movie with Michael Keaton, Gung Ho. In that one, a Japanese car company buys an American auto plant. Keaton is in management and must mediate the clash of cultures and work attitudes. At the end of the day (in heroic fashion), both workers and management come together in a cooperative and high-spirited fashion to meet their quota. You keep waiting for this to break out among the workers. And, of course, many of the workers say they are working very hard indeed. But, again, there is basically no information or objective standards. We don’t see, for example, how many pieces of glass (this is an auto glass factory) that come down the line in the American plant vs. the Chinese plant back home in China. We just know it’s less. But on all of the production lines? Are some of the workers nearly as good? This is a documentary that tries to inform by rumor or fuzzy innuendo. For all we know, a significant number of the American workers were doing their best and were committed to the project. But we just have no way of knowing. It also looks if, regarding the Chinese management, that it wasn’t just a clash of cultures as much as it was their ineffective management. Strangely (and suspiciously), somehow the American workers were expected to meet the same standards of the Chinese plant in China despite not requiring the workers to work more than an 8-hour, five-day week. Something smelled rotten. Were they setting the Americans up for failure intentionally? It sure looks like it. But, sadly, there is no perspective on this in the documentary, no pertinent questions asked by the documentarians. The documentary was gutless fluff masquerading as a serious piece.
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Post by kungfuzu on Feb 21, 2021 13:40:27 GMT -8
Japanese and Chinese are very different. In a Japanese corporation, there will meeting after meeting. These are to let everyone in any particular meeting have his say, run through various points and have people feel they are a team. There can be a fair amount of disagreement about policy choices during these meetings, but once a particular policy/path is chosen the individuals in that team are expected (and generally do) get behind the policy, for that is what the team has decided. As a member of a team, you play for the team. This is the so-called "bottom up" method of management.
Chinese companies, that I encountered, were not run this way. There was the boss and he was in charge. A very "top down" method of management.
Of course, 30-40 years ago, most Chinese companies were privately owned and this "top down" style management had huge draw backs if the 2nd and 3rd generations were not up to the task of keeping the company growing and on course. Since the companies were family owned and not public, they did not allow outsiders to gain enough power to correct mistakes made by inept family members. This is where the old Chinese saying, "From coolie to coolie in three generations" comes from.
In the 1980s, a good Chinese friend and I would have discussions about the fact that there were virtually no real Chinese multinational companies similar to Exxon, IBM, General Motors or Siemens. We agreed that the cause was the ancient Chinese family model for starting and running companies. In the last 20 or so years, the Chinese appear to have figured out the need for new blood in companies. This is potentially very threatening to Western companies.
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Post by artraveler on Feb 21, 2021 13:52:58 GMT -8
the Chinese appear to have figured out the need for new blood in companies. This is potentially very threatening to Western companies. The Chinese are reading, have read, Robert Townsend's book, Up the Organization. It is way past time that our companies learnt read again. Many of them are stuck on Sun Tzu, Art of War and Musashi Book of 5 rings. From which they have learned little to nothing about business, war or Asia.
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Post by kungfuzu on Feb 21, 2021 14:03:59 GMT -8
I have both books and have actually read them. As I recall, neither said very much that was earth shattering.
SunTzu's main message, to my mind, was, "Be tricky."
Musashi's main message was, "Be prepared."
Each message is what one would expect given the cultures from which they originated. Before anyone says anything, that is not to say all Chinese are tricky and all Japanese are prepared. In fact, there are plenty of tricky Japanese and prepared Chinese. My comments are in the context of cultural generalities.
Both are good advice, but one doesn't need to go exotic, which these two books were in the 1990s, to figure this stuff out.
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Post by artraveler on Feb 21, 2021 14:30:44 GMT -8
SunTzu's main message, to my mind, was, "Be tricky."
Musashi's main message was, "Be prepared." Good summary of both books and for a warrior or a businessman simple ideas, easy to quote and easy to follow in the first stages. Implementation at more complex levels is another matter. Forty years ago business schools were teaching both as the way Asians were getting ahead of the US especially in heavy industry. Thousands of students can quote Sun Tzu but have littler to no knowledge of Henry Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie or Stanford. They went for what they viewed as a quick fix and did not understand our own history. Stonewall Jackson never read Sun Tzu but he understood his teaching. Jackson's Sheudouh campaign in 1862 is taught in military schools around the world. As is Sherman's campaign through Georgia.
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Post by kungfuzu on Feb 21, 2021 15:20:36 GMT -8
Too few of us understand that a major reason for the spread of rot and evil throughout our Western Civilization, is due to the fact that there is always a significant percentage of any population that is bored with or has contempt for that which is familiar. These people too often mistake voids in their souls and evil in their hearts for voids and evil in their surroundings. These voids much be filled and evil must be conquered in others. Inflicting their pain on others can be a type of penance or revenge. This is not restricted to our civilization or our time. It is a part of human nature. Having learned much in Asia, my motto is, "Be tricky and prepared."
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Post by artraveler on Feb 21, 2021 16:56:31 GMT -8
It was H.D Thoreau who said, "if anything ail a man, if his bowels ache. He immediately sets out to save the world."
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Feb 22, 2021 9:00:28 GMT -8
This makes sense and is part of the explanation for why “moral narcissism” so easily takes root. Boredom. I still think Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Princess and the Pea” explains much of this as well. The better we have it, the more people obsess on the relatively trite nothings.
As for American Factory, this documentary could be groundbreaking as simply one that doesn’t take a particularly good view of unions. It’s probably true (but, again, the documentary presents little but weak anecdotes) that the Chinese were more lax regarding safety standards than most American factories. And this seemed to be the impetus for a movement to unionize the workforce. But otherwise it was clear that these former UAW workers were Snowflakes compared to the Chinese.
The Chinese billionaire stated that if they unionized that he would simply abandon the factory. I don’t doubt he would have done that…or replaced all the workers with other workers, which I think was one of his options. But one thing this documentary did was to point out just the physical difference between the Chinese workers and the former UAW workers. The former were trim, diligent, well-dressed, and earnest. The latter were fat, tattooed, sloven, and lazy.
The Chinese noted the systemic problem of the American workers wasting so much time chatting amongst themselves. I don’t find that hard to believe although, again, the documentary presents zero evidence. For instance, we are never shown a shot contrasting a Chinese production line with one with the Americans all standing around and gabbing.
I would perhaps conclude on thing as I learn more about big business. The Leftist-based criticism is that these evil capitalists move their factories to third-world countries in order to exploit cheap labor. Maybe the “cheap labor” is a part of it. But I think the more important story is that American capitalists simply can’t make a functioning, efficient, and profitable factory with American workers. There are clearly transportation and other costs advantage with making things in the United States. And some still find a way to do this, especially with heavy automation.
But given the resistance to hard work from the typical American, and the willingness to work (and at a lower cost) in third-world countries, that’s going to make the decision easier for a lot of businesses. Why fight to reform fat, lazy, tattooed Bubba? And I don’t believe we’ve seen that documentary yet that explains all this, although this one kinda-sorta steers you in that direction.
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Post by kungfuzu on Feb 22, 2021 10:25:46 GMT -8
We have touched upon this subject when discussing the question of open borders and how large business interests push so hard to keep the flow of illegal and legal aliens coming.
Many American businesses have given up on American workers not just because of wages. They have given up on American workers because a large swath of people in this country are simply unemployable. They are poorly educated, have problems with discipline, are slovenly, periodically abuse drugs and booze, are irresponsible, find team work impossible, are entitled, coddled and lazy.
To use a current phrase, these are not bugs, they are functions in today's system.
No politician or businessman, and very few religious leaders, will call out the country for these moral lapses. The later is particularly disappointing as it is the slow death of religion in this country which has contributed to these problems.
To turn this state of affairs around would take too much effort, pain and money. That is why businesses figure it is much easier to bring in foreign workers who are not infected with this American disease. Can anyone blame them for wanting to swap their American workers with foreign workers?
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Post by Brad Nelson on Feb 22, 2021 12:05:51 GMT -8
And exactly zero people are saying this, including Rush Limbaugh, although Prager had an extraordinary guest on in his last hour who was speaking some rare frankness (but not really about this subject exactly). You would have appreciated it, if only because he sounded like you. He was with some kind of foreign affairs consulting company. I could probably get that hour digitally from Pat who, I think, still subscribes to Pragertopia.
By the way, he did talk a bit about the Texas energy situation. Yes, the (10%?) in so-called “renewables” was part of the problem. But mostly he put it down to an energy transmission problem. Anyway, there's more to it, as you’ve already outlined. But he was of a thoroughly Kungian mindset. No nonsense. Called a spade a spade.
This is the point where one says, “So tell me what your really think about the American worker.”
The documentary ended with a text message on the screen about the challenge of the coming years being about how to adapt to automation. Ya think? Automation would have happened anyway. But the (insert the above quoted text as an adjective) American worker has accelerated it.
This could be a factor of a lack of guts. Speaking out means insulting your congregation. But another factor is surely that these pastors and religious leaders have been raised on this “woke” junk. This is now how they parse the world. Look to Catholics for where the Protestants are headed (and some, apparently, are already there or further).
The flabbiness of the American worker may be the greatest untold story in America. And given how moral narcissism is rampant (moral preening, virtue signaling, “wokeness,” whatever you want to call this mental and moral flabbiness), I can perhaps understand that. The populace is in no mood but to be flattered.
Remember: I shut StubbornThings down not because I got tired of the behind-the-scenes work. In a nutshell, I got tired of the moral vanity. It wasn’t about a disagreement of content, per se. It was about purging the place of the right’s equivalent of virtue signalers.
I prefer frank, interesting dialogue — even if it includes calling me a big fat idiot. What I can’t stand is basting in the vacuous me-me-me stuff that is part and parcel of the culture right now.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Feb 22, 2021 13:14:11 GMT -8
Pat was kind enough to send me that and I emailed it to you, Mr. Flu. If Artler would like a copy, I could send him a copy as well. The fellow's name is George Freedman. Apparently he is a frequent guest on the show.
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Post by kungfuzu on Feb 22, 2021 13:24:13 GMT -8
If he is the man I am thinking of, he is the founder of Stratfor, which is a company that advises corporations about what is happening around the world. He sold Stratfor, got pushed out and started a new company.
He is very smart. I have one of his books. While like his general approach, I disagree with him as regards the threat which Russia presents to the USA. I haven't followed him for some years now, but I doubt he has changed. By the way, he lives, or did live for many years, in Austin, Texas.
Thanks for the file.
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Post by kungfuzu on Feb 22, 2021 13:31:49 GMT -8
As I often say, the truth is dangerous and must be handled like a hot potato. Can you imagine what it would do to your bottom line or chances of being elected, if you said what I say? It is very difficult for anyone who depends on the public to deal in the truth.
Listen, at the best of times, dealing with employees is a colossal pain in the ass. I had twenty people working directly for me and I ended up spending half of my time keeping them from each others' throats. And that was with Asian workers who are generally much much less complicated than American workers.
Today, American companies are having all sorts of problems getting good workers. It is not just a question of wages. A local supermarket is constantly looking for people. I personally know that in one of the food departments that they not only have difficulty getting people, but the people they get are too often close to useless. For part-time help they pay $10-12/hr and you get 10% off of your purchases in the store. I believe they will pay close to $15/ for full time people. You can basically tell the HR people when you can work and when you can't. They will work with you on your hours. This is something that is very valuable for people who want to work part time. It is worth several $$ per hour in wages, in my opinion.
Yet, in the end, this department has to depend on people who have immigrated to the USA to run it. Yes there are some America-born people there, but they are generally not dependable. Sometimes they don't show up. They don't call in to let the store know if they will be late or not coming by. Whatever.
This is common across the country. Hell, I have heard of a few cases where younger workers quit after a week and didn't even show up for their pay checks.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Feb 22, 2021 20:44:58 GMT -8
Does he suppose the threat is greater or lower than you do?
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Post by Brad Nelson on Feb 22, 2021 20:49:56 GMT -8
I heard this complaint frequently. Getting people to show up is a challenge.
In my day, the ethic was to show up a couple minutes early, stay a couple minutes late. Work hard. Ask the boss if there is anything else he would like done. Make yourself useful. Show enthusiasm.
Back in the day when even the average worker was not a complete slug, such an attitude might have made you stand out a little. Now employers would probably look at you as some kind of strange aberration and be shocked. They’d want to cut your skin to see if you bleed, to see if you weren’t a robot.
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Post by kungfuzu on Feb 22, 2021 21:35:24 GMT -8
For years, he maintained that Russia was potentially the greatest threat to the USA. He has written this in his books, said it on TV and in the various newsletters or reports which Stratfor sent out. I used to get these regularly, but some years back Stratfor suffered a big security breach in their computer server. Since then I have not received the reports.
This anti-Russia mania, which too many in the USA foreign-policy blabocracy have, is very damaging to us. It has kept our eye of the ball of China, for far too long. I have long maintained that China is the biggest threat to the USA.
I have a theory as to its almost hypnotic hold on these "experts." Many of our foreign-policy pundits are either East-European Jews or the offspring of East-European Jews. George Friedman is a Hungarian born Jew.
A fear and loathing of Imperial Russia resides in the DNA of these people. It is similar to the dislike some Southerners still have for Yankees, but many many times stronger. These people simply can't get away from their anti-Russian bias. It colors all their thinking about the CIS, Putin; anything to do with Russia.
None of this is to say that Vladimir Putin is a nice man, or that Russian interests are the same as ours. But the frantic worrying about a country with an economy smaller than that of Texas, with a population of less that 150 million, with a rapidly aging population and one of the lowest birth rates in the world, seems somewhat overwrought.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Feb 23, 2021 8:49:15 GMT -8
As an armchair diplomat, that makes sense to me. It’s arguable we have more to fear from California than we do from Russia. I was watching an episode of Blue Bloods the other day. This one involved the murder of a Hasidic Jew. Inspector Reagan has difficulty getting information from this tight-knit group because of a long institutional memory of being rounded up by the police in Nazi Germany, Russia, etc. That is their excuse, anyway. This is TV. And this is Blue Bloods, so I don’t expect anywhere near a one-to-one correspondence with reality. But this certainly seemed realistic. And I thought that if such lingering prejudice was true, it was a highly destructive one and partially explains why many Jews have made friends with some nefarious characters while keeping a raging beef with people who have done no wrong other than to be the object of Jewish prejudice. If a police inspector is knocking on your door in order to help you because one of your own has been murdered, and you reject him just for being (I guess) white (Catholic?), then any claims to moral (or intellectual) superiority vanish. This murder turned out to be an inside job, a crime of passion. Another Hasidic Jews was fooling around with the dead fellow’s wife. On the other hand, the reason we got into this story line in the first place was because Henry Reagan (a former police commissioner) was attending the funeral of his old friend, the late Grand Rebbe. No surprise that the Grand Rebbe had shown more wisdom than the yutes. I think that’s a cross-cultural thing, for sure. So even though this is just a TV show and everything should be taken with a grain of salt, I thought it was informative to some extent.
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Post by kungfuzu on Feb 23, 2021 9:55:49 GMT -8
Believe me, as one who lived in Asia for twenty years and has had business there for over forty years, China is the single biggest threat to US interests across the world. I never said this about Japan when many fools and conmen where going around spouting things like "Japan as no. 1." There was simply no way that Japan was going to overtake the US as the world's Superpower. Demographics alone would have confirmed this to anyone who wanted to take a somewhat closer look. In the late 1980s/early 1990s, I recall having "discussions" with people about this subject. Even people who had lived in Asia for years believed much of the nonsense. I have seen China go from an extremely primitive economy to a world class place in many areas. In the 1980s, their infrastructure was a joke. Today, in many areas it is better than much of what sees here. Of course, it is the case that countries which industrialized first have older infrastructure than those which recently modernized their systems, but the US is falling back while China is advancing. In 2000 when Red China joined the WTO, their GNP was below US$400 billion per year. Imagine what it was in the 1980s. Now it is probably around US$15 trillion. I do not believe the numbers the CCP gives out, but there is no doubt there has been huge growth, such as has never been seen before in history. Historically, China has always been something of an imperial power, but internal politics, divisions and power struggles always seemed to keep their ambitions muted. After having suffered under the Manchus and being humiliated by different colonial powers from the mid-1800s to the rise of the CCP, the Han Chinese have a good deal of pent up resentment to release. That fact, with the inherent racism of many Han, makes for a dangerous mixture. We Han know, and you should know too, that we Chinese are superior to the rest of you. In case you have forgotten, China is the Middle Kingdom and our rulers have the Mandate of Heaven on their side. Suck on that you barbarians.
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