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Personally I find Mr. Ma's position hysterical and rather contradictory to the forces that have allowed Alibaba to blossom. By becoming the world's workshop, China's long game plan is that the IP will of course follow, and be readily copied for alternative developments. A rather limp...oh it's your own fault.
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities...
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My guess is that IKE, like myself, would say that Jack Ma is mostly correct.
Our problem(s) are pretty clear. Income inequality (also called Wall Street Greed, Government by lobbyists, etc.) and spending on "Security" have robbed us of our birthright.
No one who studies the issues can deny that.
Last edited by toosie; 01-27-2017 at 05:02 PM..
Reason: Edited quote and added link to comply with TOS
You cannot possibly have a honest conversation about what went wrong without talking about politics.
Agreed, but how do you propose we do that?
.
It always amazes me how we (humans) love to make simple issues so complex.
Americans seem even better at this than most....
The "secret" to a modern civil society can be found in practice elsewhere and copied. Actually, we're not even copying it because - in a sense - we GAVE it to them.
Germany...
The path back to success here is very easy. The problem is that a large percentage of influential Americans do not want success for the masses. Greed has become our undoing.
What we have done is created a "bizzarro backwards" world where good is bad and bad is good.
Unions, pensions, decent wages, good benefits = BAD
Cheapest Labor that will work and do the job = GOOD
Health Care as a Basic Right = BAD
Let em die on the side of the road = GOOD
People centered society and government = BAD
Lobbyist/Corporate based society and government = GOOD
Taxes to create a civil society = BAD
Tax cuts from debt and deficit = GOOD
I could go on, but the ideas are the same.
The old joke applies. How many psychoanalysts does it take to change a light bulb?
ONE - but it has to WANT TO CHANGE.
Until we rid ourselves of the curse of these false ideals (every person is an island, sink or swim, money=votes and power, etc.), we are not going to change.
It's interesting how there were two movies "Wall Street" along with Wolf of Wall Street, the Big Short and many many others...and, yet, much of the power in this country still has that sign on the wall "Greed is Good".
What I am getting from his speech is right because of greed by the few the majority suffered. China too shares the same exploitation by a the few elites but the different between China and US is that China keeps people employed. There's no major layoffs each year or quarter. Most Chinese go from job to job being employed and you get paid as much as you want to work and there are lots of tech jobs. Alibaba is growing faster than Amazon and they employ a lot more people as a result of serving over 1 billion people. Where Jack Ma and Jeff Bezos is different in that Jack Ma provides a lot more jobs than Amazon does.
American companies don't hire like Chinese companies do because of regulations it's harder to fire people here while in China people are hired and fired at a high frequency.
I think the biggest difference is that China has less regulations for doing business and the business values workers participation it's one of the things you see in Chinese businesses is they like rally workers to work harder. In America, there's no more loyalty. It's just a paycheck and people largely work in silos and hardly much enthusiasm behind work in America.
Healthcare is the biggest problem here, in China healthcare is as cheap as going to Starbucks and getting a latte'. Drugs there are dirt cheap.
The part I agree with in Jack Ma's statement is the US Government does overspend on its military budget. Unfortunately this has been the case for a long time.
The part I agree with in Jack Ma's statement is the US Government does overspend on its military budget. Unfortunately this has been the case for a long time.
Not as long as you would imagine. It went WAY up - doubled and way more - for the Bush Wars. What didn't happen...which happened with other wars...is that it didn't go down after those wars wound mostly down. So now we are near or at the highs and Trump wants to go higher - even tho a study commissioned by the Pentagon themselves claims they could save 125 BILLION per year with no difference in national security.
The fact that we don't shows utter selfishness - as Ma is suggesting - is our ruination.
It's a pretty amazing thing when citizens of other countries have to tell us the obvious.
Not as long as you would imagine. It went WAY up - doubled and way more - for the Bush Wars. What didn't happen...which happened with other wars...is that it didn't go down after those wars wound mostly down. So now we are near or at the highs and Trump wants to go higher - even tho a study commissioned by the Pentagon themselves claims they could save 125 BILLION per year with no difference in national security.
The fact that we don't shows utter selfishness - as Ma is suggesting - is our ruination.
It's a pretty amazing thing when citizens of other countries have to tell us the obvious.
Military spending has become one of the last refuges of pork barrel spending, as such Congress continues to force feed the Pentagon funding it does not need nor want. However the benefits are directed clearly at the vast US military "machine" that is spread almost throughout every US state.
Republicans and Democrats learned after the last round of serious military base closures and budget cuts/realignments that the economic consequences are often very real for areas affected. In some areas of this country often the main if not only source of strong economic activity is tied to military spending. Everything from a base to ship building.
Military spending has become one of the last refuges of pork barrel spending, as such Congress continues to force feed the Pentagon funding it does not need nor want. However the benefits are directed clearly at the vast US military "machine" that is spread almost throughout every US state.
Republicans and Democrats learned after the last round of serious military base closures and budget cuts/realignments that the economic consequences are often very real for areas affected. In some areas of this country often the main if not only source of strong economic activity is tied to military spending. Everything from a base to ship building.
This may be true - obviously if you throw money off a cliff the people at the bottom of the cliff picking up the cast-offs are highly appreciative of same.
Remember, the 125 BILLION per year that the Pentagon can save doesn't even cover base and manufacturing closing....that's just contractor slop.
The most important point is that every dollar going there is doing so instead of somewhere else - and, of course, much of it is from debt and deficit. So, as IKE notes, it is theft from ourselves.
We are fooling ourselves. Praying at the altar of money (defense jobs, contractors, etc.) instead of the one we should be look toward - efficiency and efficacy.
Let's look at Amazon vs Alibaba. What's the big difference? Amazon's model is about beating the local markets with their economies of scale, efficiencies, and regulations. A local brick and motar store like Walmart can't compete against Amazon's offering. Any small business or mom&pop store can't compete with Amazon either.
Alibaba makes their services available to sellers and provides a marketplace for global buyers and sellers. They can enpower anybody to buy and sell and they don't set ridculous rules and fees like Amazon and Ebay does. It's not perfect but they give more controls to the sellers.
Of course Amazon uses the power of the media and lobbyist to push Alibaba away from the US because China is more dangerous than muslims.
The big difference Jack Ma says is that American business uses globalism to replace jobs. Chinese use globalism to attract business for their own businesses. That's why China mints more millionaires than any other country. The US business elites do not want the people to get richer they want regulations to keep people and small business under control and away from competing against them.
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