There’s always south of the US border.

Making Central America rich solves the immigration issue that has caused much political divisiveness.

Of course many Americans will likely head south for a better deal:

https://nypost.com/2022/07/28/mexico-city-residents-angered-...

Funny no one suggests bringing it back to the USA. The margins are good enough on those products, and there is enough room for automation they could do it.

Bringing it back?

The US was never a bluetooth headphone manufacturing powerhouse. We make other stuff, and we should continue to make the high value goods we are specialized in, not consumer trinkets for low wages. Value added in manufacturing is far more important, and building headphones doesn't do that. Leave that to some other place.

I suspect that you have been listening to too much news entertainment. The US manufacturing industry is as big as it's ever been in terms of real output (not jobs). There has more than a trillion dollars in expansion since the pre-covid peak in manufacturing. The US is #2 in the world for gross manufacturing output, and in the top 10 for value add.

A lot of u.s manufacturing capability for electronics is paid for by military contracts. The U.S manufacturers don't even try to compete with China because military contractors are not allowed to make stuff there.

Why shouldnt the us and the eu plus friends manufacture bluetooth headsets with the aid of high tech robotics? As soon as that type of high volume low price manufacturing moves back you will see a lot more innovation. This will only benefit everyone’s progress including in non aligned countries. The r&d and training to build and create robotics would be rather welcome.

>> Why shouldnt the us and the eu plus friends manufacture bluetooth headsets with the aid of high tech robotics?

Because:

>> high volume low price manufacturing

Is not possible in the US or EU.

We don’t have the amount of labor, let alone the the rightly skilled labor (I recognize these aren’t “skilled labor” jobs, which we don’t have enough skilled labor for but we also don’t have enough people to do the unskilled labor inline with other parts of the world because we stopped training people for this type of work decades ago) to do this kind of work. We just don’t. Especially not at the volume you would need for stuff like AirPods or Beats.

The Foxconn fiasco in Wisconsin was a grift on many, many levels - but the labor part of it was never taken care of even before that whole thing blew up.

The reality is, if you were to manufacture something like AirPods (let alone an iPhone) in the US, you would be not only doubling or tripling your labor costs, you’d be getting shittier labor for your money. Not to mention the additional expenses and tariffs of having to recenter all of the material imports and parts into the US from other parts of the world.

I’m all for paying better wages throughout the world, even at the expense of profit margin or raised device prices. It’s a lot harder to justify paying more for lesser-quality labor and to upend logistics because of some false idea that “made in America” means anything.

I think you're right but I disagree with your assertion that we couldn't manufacture these products in the US. Certainly we can't overnight, but it doesn't mean we can't at all or that we couldn't or shouldn't try to, generally speaking. Add to the fact that in China in particular as it grows into a more middle income country it no longer becomes the "cheapest place to build stuff" and instead comes more inline with other first-world economies which will cause companies to relocate factories provided cost is a concern, which if it is, it means leaving China and if it's not then there isn't an argument for not relocating outside of China in the first place.

> It’s a lot harder to justify paying more for lesser-quality labor and to upend logistics because of some false idea that “made in America” means anything.

Well it kind of does right? It's a geostrategic concern where certain components or products need to be made in safe harbors. Instability is bad for business, and the fact that we are discussing this proves the point. Made in America doesn't necessarily have to mean the rah-rah Eagles soaring kind of thing, it can also mean actual national security concerns relative to geopolitical and strategic realities that necesitate hire costs that outweigh other benefits.

Totally agree with everything you're saying. Apple products (along with most consumer electronics) simply aren't strategic to national security so they can and will be continued to be made where profit margins are highest modulo tariffs and sanctions.

> Certainly we can't overnight, but it doesn't mean we can't at all or that we couldn't or shouldn't try to, generally speaking.

Ok, but we have tried. A number of times. And it has failed. Ironically, foreign car companies probably do the best job with doing manufacturing plants in the US right now. But many of the experiments to bring manufacturing back to the US, especially with electronics, have failed. See also the Foxconn disaster in Wisconsin that cost billions but never got off the ground. And the attempts by Apple, Motorola and others to make products here. And the flat-out education crisis that has prevented more chip fabs from even being built stateside.

I’m not saying don’t try. But we have tried. And it has failed. Abs the quality of labor is more expensive and worse and I don’t blame any company for looking elsewhere.

> it can also mean actual national security concerns relative to geopolitical and strategic realities that necesitate hire costs that outweigh other benefits.

Ok, but “assembled in America” wouldn’t solve this. Almost every single part — the semiconductor, the memory, the screens, the screws, the plastic or aluminum housings, the batteries, the battery controllers, are made in China or Vietnam or Taiwan. Using minerals sourced from Africa or South America or whatever. So unless you can move the entire supply chain to this region (and we do not have the labor, skilled or unskilled to do any of that), a supply chain that has been carefully and meticulously setup for maximum tax benefits for all parties involved, what benefit is achieved of having a person in America assemble a phone with an SoC and RAM and an SSD that was still made in Asia? If there is a national security concern, that concern will exist whether the product is assembled in Texas or in Shenzhen. If there is going to be a back door, it’ll come in anyway.

Even the solution of building for fabs here (which we should do and should have started investing in at least a decade ago) is difficult because we don’t have the labor figures to staff this fabs. And those fabs are largely skilled jobs. TSMC and others are offering insane amounts of money to college grads to move to Asia to work in the fabs. Intel is way behind on building new fabs and part of that is labor-related. And although Intel is based in the US, it doesn’t make the chips that run in 99% of the world’s electronics.

I’m not saying there aren’t potential security problems. I’m saying that those will exist regardless of where stuff is assembled and that globally, being able to upend the whole state of supply chain and logistics away from Asia and into another geographic area is something that would take a decade on the low-end and the parts of the world that would be well-equipped to take on that sort of load (Vietnam, India, some parts of Central and South America), have their own major geopolitical struggles.

It’s a difficult problem to solve and we should absolutely be less reliant on one region for all of our manufacturing, but we need to acknowledge this isn’t a problem that can be solved quickly or that frankly, the US is well-positioned to solve at all.

>> The reality is, if you were to manufacture something like AirPods (let alone an iPhone) in the US, you would be not only doubling or tripling your labor costs, you’d be getting shittier labor for your money.

The latter part of your statement is very poorly understood by most people on HN and generally the US. Having toured overseas factories that make goods my company contract manufactures... there is no way American workers at 3x the wages could possibly compete in terms of productivity. You're absolutely right, and while I somewhat believed this to be plausible before I visited, after actually seeing how products were made over there in "skilled labor" factories, it's truly insane.

Because India is also putting a lot of effort into submodule production. It's one thing to do final assembly in a location. What India is doing is putting a lot of effort into building the ancillary industries that accompany final assembly. All those discrete resistors and capacitors that go onto the PCB have to be sourced from somewhere. If you run out the line can't do anything. This doesn't happen in cities like Taipei, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen because there's literally infinite amounts of these commodities in the area thanks to all the manufacturers of these commodities.

Nobody in the US makes SMD parts anymore. It's all higher up in the value chain. But those parts, even if they're commodities, still need to be made. India is going for it which is why Apple is diversifying there instead of the US.

IMO, since Apple's public, it would dig too deeply into Apple's short-term profitability and growth, making it a no-go for its voting shareholders.

Put it to a vote.

Rich people hold most of the shares and they don't want people to know that they're just as self-centered as the rest of us (likely more which is partially what inflated their coffers to begin with, but that's just subjective assumptions).

Time to put the ESG/political posturing of major financial firms to the test, I suppose?

> Time to put the ESG/political posturing of major financial firms to the test, I suppose?

Fastest way to end ESG posturing I suppose. Although ESG concerns don’t typically include “made in America”. It’s not clear to me how that’s be an ESG thing.

I did and one option in order to keep costs low is to rely more on high end automation. And when there is no capacity then have it spread around allied countries first. It makes sense from a strategic point of view. Countries such as india have no issue, as we see in the comment section and its actions, to look after its own citizens first. Why shouldn't we follow a similar approach? Why send manufacturing to countries that blame their issues on us and first chance they have to take selfish action they do it. Shouldn't we also (by we and us i mean all aligned countries including those in asia and latin america) look after our own first? It feels like so often we help nations develop only to have it backfire later on.

Well margins are good because they build cheap and sell expensive. Isn't it?

That and ukraine once the war is over and simply automating more and bringing manufacturing back in the west and western allied countries.

I sort of work much on automation. Once upon a time in a Canada futon factory I worked as summer jobber. They had a automation packing machine that is like getting broken every two or three hours so the whole line of workers have to wait for it to get fixed, like most my later working scenarios. I do believe I have pretty solid engineering background. The biggest problem of automation is the mechanical parts are so easy to break down. The second problem is electronic chip mostly last two years, if they are located in a very complex place (inside an engine, tall building roof etc), repair and replacement cost is prohibitive. Untrained and transient labors hardly think of the two problems.

while doers do, haters hate. It is complex.

So more expensive products and less jobs because of automation.

Next economic crisis here we come.

This seems like a luddite's argument. Automation tends to make things less expensive, and automation hasn't lead to economic crisis' in the past

That's like saying computers are going to destroy a lot of jobs and cause an economic crisis, when in reality the opposite happened

And a lot of automation in manufacturing doesn’t negate the need for human labor anyway. It’s still faster, more efficient, and better QA in many cases to have humans assemble certain things than to use machines. That won’t be the case forever, but the level that people think that the automation is going to be superior or even faster than the human element is often forgotten.

I agree with you that automation doesn’t necessarily lead to a loss of jobs. It can create opportunities for whole new skills and job types.

The struggle has been, especially in the US, that we haven’t then properly prepared or skilled people to do the new wave of jobs that can’t be automated.

I always think of this article [1] from January 2017:

> When the German engineering company Siemens Energy opened a gas turbine production plant in Charlotte, N.C., some 10,000 people showed up at a job fair for 800 positions. But fewer than 15 percent of the applicants were able to pass a reading, writing and math screening test geared toward a ninth-grade education.

So out of 10,000 applicants, less than 1500 were even qualified to interview for a job, of which they only had 800 positions. That’s a problem but the solution isn’t to shun automation.

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/education/edlife/factory-...

So why was it necessary to shift production to China?

Automation tended to kill blue collar jobs, and if you don't have job even cheap is expensive.

The next wave of automation will kill the higher value jobs too.

> So why was it necessary to shift production to China?

It wasn't necessary. You're conflating necessary with desirable.

The gap between the two is an increased profit margin, which is desirable for most corporations.

Further, the CCP is becoming both dramatically more hostile to business in general and more dangerous as a foe to liberal, democratic nations (including Taiwan most prominently), while simultaneously the financial cost of operating in China has continued to climb by the year (which is a trend that is unlikely to significantly reverse). The China discount for offshoring isn't nearly what it was 15-20 years ago.

The disaster that Russia is causing in Europe is a small hint of what China might cause in Asia in the coming decades. Russia's perceived capabilities weren't nearly what the West thought they were; China's military capabilities are more likely to exceed our expectations (in recent history China has more commonly followed the path of hide your strength and bide your time, as opposed to Russia's vacuous boasting), and it's backed up by a gigantic economy with manufacturing that Russia could only dream of.

Thats the catch. Automating here in the west means we can maintain a lower price while creating jobs that would otherwise be lost altogether. I think returning manufacturing with these constraints in mind is a must.

You can't just retrain workers from the jobs they replaced to new jobs.

Takes time and effort but it will be worth it in the end.

Central America has some very hard to solve cartel issues.

End the drug war and the problem will solve itself.

This statement makes no sense. Ending the drug war will not automatically end the existence of cartels.

It just takes away 90% of their revenue, which is effective enough.

The issue is that the cartels are now endemic to the region. They're part of the government, they're extorting legal businesses, they're laundering the money and investing into legitimate businesses. You can't just undo their influence.

You can still take away 90% of their revenue. There is no credible solution that does not begin with that step.

How does ending the drug war take away 90% of their revenue. If you legalize drugs, the cartels would become legitimate producers and corner the market through fear and intimidation.

#1 The price will drop to the floor.

#2 Most drugs can just as easily be produced domestically by pharmaceutical companies.

#3 Of the drugs that can't be produced domestically, the Mexican cartels are just middlemen that can be cut out entirely. There's no reason drugs from Colombia need to transit Mexico.

#4 If you're worried about Colombian cartels - see points #1 and #2.

We already went through this with alcohol and organized crime.

I think logically the path for these is to become legal business entities no?

It worked with alcohol, why not with other drugs?

You don't see a lot of illegal speakeasies and moonshine stills around, do you?

So.... you're saying we shouldn't end the drug war? Because without a doubt that would have a massive impact on cartels.

> So.... you're saying we shouldn't end the drug war?

You might want to reread his post or take reading comprehension lessons.

No, I comprehend just fine. Parent poster is making a completely unnecessary comment in order to play devil's advocate, when we all know universally that ending the drug war is an important step in the conflict against an organized crime unit which came to prominence because of said drug war.

I think you are actually not comprehending. I never said we shouldn’t end the drug war.

The original statement was derisive without actually offering any useful criticism, and I called it out by taking it to its logical conclusion. If you want more thoughtful replies, it starts with your own comment.

They aren't only into drugs - cartels are around all products.

They don’t just sell drugs. They’re woven into whole economies from tourism to construction and beyond.

Evidence from California seems to suggest that ending the drug war locally has actually strengthened cartels: https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2022-09-08/ess...

I'm curious why growers feel it's still more advantageous to illegally grow? It must mean the risk/reward still dramatically favours illegal production. That's what needs to be addressed.

I think coffee/tobacco is probably a good example of what can be achieved with legalizing drugs. It might be the path to it is a bit slow as there's a transition, but I don't see why other drugs couldn't end up similarly to coffee.

Heck, you could argue it for everything even. Why do fruits and vegetables farms don't feel like going the illegal production route?

> Heck, you could argue it for everything even. Why do fruits and vegetables farms don't feel like going the illegal production route?

I’ve never illegally bought drugs but I know people that have. I would not be comfortable doing it, but plenty of people are. Drugs, especially legal ones, are expensive.

I’ve never illegally bought fruit and I do not know anyone who has. I don’t know anyone who would be comfortable doing it. Legal fruit is not expensive.

> Legal fruit is not expensive

Assuming we agree they aren't, why is that?

Or in other words, if we're saying it's because drugs are still too expensive and somehow illegal production can compete better on price, why is that?

Especially with weed, the process is so similar to any other commodity agricultural process.

> I would not be comfortable doing it, but plenty of people are

This seems transitory to me. If we take this separate to the price argument, I think it must be restricted to people that were already doing so prior to legal alternatives. Again, tossing the price factor out, I would suspect all new and future consumer would go to a legal source for purchase.

That said, the article talked about production, not wholesale. So it's not clear from the article that illegal sellers have risen, it's possible your street dealers have been impacted, but that legal vendors or byproduct makers are purchasing from the illegal supply chain still.

> Assuming we agree they aren't, why is that?

Cheap labor. Low threshold for consumers to pay a lot, potentially government subsidy.

Drugs have way higher testing requirements. In California cannabis has intense testing and labeling requirements. Fruit doesn’t seem to. Also taxes of course.

> would suspect all new and future consumer would go to a legal source for purchase.

Oh absolutely agree. I think there’s a cohort that would way the drugs but not be willing to engage in illegal activity.

Maintaining stores and supply chains and not a guy with a burner phone and a beat up Toyota driving to a parking lot probably raises costs too (compared to illegal drugs, not fruit obviously). Same at every step of supply chain. The costs are likely high for compliance etc.

Yes, I'm sure the narco multi-millionaires will happily go back to being peasant-farmers after legalization.

So how do you propose to do that?

alas, the cartels are not bound by normal lobbying rules.

When a poor country takes off, emigration doesn't decrease: it increases, as people become more educated, better informed and can afford travel.

Source? Maybe legal emigration increases, but I doubt that illegal or asylum-seeking emigration would increase. People are fleeing from the terrible conditions in their home countries.

This premise was discussed a few times prominently on HN, and it appears to be accurate. There is an initial surge in people leaving as a country climbs economically; then it tapers off and reverses after you get rich enough to support what I would guess is a broad middle class quality of life.

"New Research Confirms that Migration Rises as the Poorest Countries Get Richer"

"As GDP per capita rises, so do emigration rates. This relationship slows after roughly US$5,000, and reverses after roughly $10,000"

https://www.cgdev.org/article/new-research-confirms-migratio...

Central America is more expensive than Asia.

1. India is not alligned to any country. India cares about what it's best interest for its own people. If that means buying oil from Russia so be it.

2. Article 46 of Indian constitution -> "The State shall promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people, and, in particular, of the Scheduled Castes and the Sche- duled Tribes, and shall protect them from social injustice and all forms of exploitation."

3. The constitution itself of India was written by Ambedkar who himself is a dalit.

I applaud the Indian state. One of the worst things about the Ukraine-Russian Conflict is being made to pick a side. Kudos to India for masterfully navigating both sides.

By buying russian oil and indirectly supporting Russia.

I think this is mistaken.

We have seen no Western governments strongly criticize India for these oil purchases. The only criticisms have been from media outlets and mild criticisms when government officials are questioned by the media. But even those mild criticisms are usually caveated with something to the effect that this is not gonna affect relations with India.

The reason is simple. Western countries are privately thrilled with Indias arrangement. If India wasn’t buying Russian oil they would be buying it from the global market instead which would further push up oil prices and therefore inflation.

Even better, India is doing it at a massive discount ($35/barrel, I believe) which at current prices effectively translates to Russia selling oil to India at a loss.

Another interesting thing to note is that the $35/barrel discount India is getting, is functionally similar to the price cap idea that the European countries are trying to enact. In fact, I suspect it’s an even lower price than the cap they will settle on, and it remains to be seen if Europe can enact this price cap at all, something India has been doing successfully for the entirety of the war.

Agree for overall, but even if India bought oil for $35 discount, $88 (WTI) - $35 = $53, it seems to still profitable price. Also anyway there are fixed costs. So technically if everyone don't buy Russian oil, it's better for sanction but some people in developing country will die. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/international-b...

This says $20 discount https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-60783874

$20 is also huge.

Don’t forget that it’s also far more expensive for Russia to send oil to India.

They don’t have oil pipelines to India. Their oil is being shipped to India, but their ports are all located on their Northern coast which means every round trip takes days and weeks longer than they used to when supplying the likes of Europe, which means they need more tankers to supply the same amount of oil to India than they would Europe.

Keep in mind that the European gas crisis is because Russia are restricting supply, not because European countries aren't prepared to buy it.

Are India behaving any differently to European countries in trying to secure energy?

The EU is voluntarily cutting off purchasing Russian oil - which is what the parent comment referred to - and has placed an embargo on Russian oil.

The EU is taking enormous harm upon itself by what it's doing in regards to the Ukraine / Russia war. It could stay out of the Ukraine conflict, it could have the pipelines all operating normally, it could be enjoying dramatically lower energy bills.

India is doing the exact opposite. They're intentionally avoiding harming themselves and are opportunistically buying cheap energy.

Yes, they're behaving very differently. Which also doesn't mean it's not in India's self-interest to purchase cheap energy, given their economic context. One would be a fool to not grasp why they're doing it and that for their own well-being it may very well make sense; they're not part of Europe and they don't view themselves as being involved.

Oil is a global market. India buying Russian oil means they aren’t buying it from the broader market. If they didn’t buy Russian oil they would buy it from the broader market increasing overall oil prices and inflation in Europe.

More importantly, India is buying oil at a heavily discounted price, which at current prices means Russia is likely selling at a loss. This is working so well that Europe is trying to emulate something similar with their price cap idea, which is functionally similar to what India is doing, except India’s discount probably means an even lower price for Russia and India has been doing this successfully for 200+ days while it’s not clear Europe’s price cap idea will ever get off the ground.

India’s GDP per capita is a bit over $2000. The EU GDP per capita is about $40k.

I completely understand them buying energy from wherever it’s cheapest. Industrialization of India decreases real poverty, and an increase in prices would hit them hard. Asking them to stop buying fuel is like asking a homeless person for food. And doesn’t the EU continue to purchase Russian gas?

Europe have been getting Russian oil, gas and other resources for trillions of USD for the last 20 years perfectly aware that the money was spent on corruption and military buildup. Moreover, Europe continues to do so even now. European companies even continued to send military equipment to Russia after the initial invasion in Ukraine in 2014.

I do not say that it makes India somehow right. But the scale of wrongs by Europe is so big that any benefits India is trying to get are minuscule .

Unfortunately diplomacy is a balancing act. India, I assume keeps a higher priority on making sure its poorest don't go under in this ongoing energy crisis. They have 1.4B mouths to feed & not exactly rich. Plus its not their fight, and if they don't want to join a security quorum against a third country, its their choice.

Until the pipeline blew up, how many resources did the EU import from Russia compared to India?

Well, it's not indirect. It's quite direct. India has fossil fuel deals with Russia and gets most of its weapons from Russia. America armed wars against India in the past and continues to be the largest source of military aid for India's regional enemy Pakistan. Indian-American relations have become quite good in recent times but geopolitics isn't a schoolyard my side v your side thing. You just manage the amount to which people will align with one or the other on a specific issue.

> India cares about what it's best interest for its own people. If that means buying oil from Russia so be it.

So should we. Too often we help countries that then turn their backs on us because they “care about whats best for their people”. Arent we allowed to do the same? Why such a negative reaction when we even suggest the prospect of doing so.

> most important their treatment of the dalit and lower castes.

Dalit are people from lower caste. Also, Indians have been actively engaged in removing the caste-based discrimination for decades now. It will take time. Do you know that at least 50% of all the jobs in the government sector are reserved from people in the lower caste? The same applied to college education as well. This percentage may be higher in some Indian states. Show me another country that has taken such drastic steps to correct historical wrongs.

The US civil war was a pretty impressive display of desire to right historical wrongs.

The US Civil War war never achieved its stated aims for black / previously-ensalved people. Even though the North won the US Civil War, because of Andrew Johnson (edit: not Jackson) and the ultra-conservative SCOTUS, the people of the US South were able to put into effect Jim Crow laws, and the South essentially won the war over whether non-white people should be treated as equal citizens – there's a book on this subject: https://www.amazon.ca/How-South-Won-Civil-War/dp/0190900903

There’s a gap between ‘did not achieve its stated aims’ and ‘did not win any actual rights’ that is big enough to drive a truck through…

Also, Andrew Jackson wasn’t a very nice guy, but he’d been dead for 28 years when the Civil War ended. Can’t really blame him for how things worked out at that point.

Do you mean Rutherford B Hayes? Andrew Jackson died in 1845, 16 years before the civil war began.

Sorry, I meant Andrew Johnson. He kept vetoing progressive bills, opposed the 14th amendment, etc.

Rutherford B. Hayes was horrible too, since he was the one who pulled federal troops out of the South (who were there to protect non-white people's voting rights).

Honestly, the Southern states should never have been admitted back into the Union _as states_, but should rather have been annexed back as territories (with no federal representation). Abolitionists admitted those states back under the theory that blacks voting would result in progressive folks being elected.

But we're still paying the price of that foresight today. If the southern states were territories, Trump & Bush would never have won, the Congress would have been a highly-progressive for the past two decades, etc. Honestly, even today it might be an improvement if these southern states just formed their own country, but with a free-trade and currency-sharing treaty with the rest of the US.

The issues are the electoral college, two senators per state regardless of population and gerrymandering. If we truly had “one person one vote”, most of these problems would be solved

1) multiple member constituencies for minority districts might actually solve a lot of problems

2) there is an section in the 14th amendment which allows states’ electoral votes and their Congressional representation to be zeroed out if they don’t play nice (basically the same as territories)

Re: 2)

The amendment says: “the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.”

Not zero out, but rather reduce.

Regardless, the conservative SCOTUS would never enforce this anyways.

The civil war did achieve its stated goal.

Here is Lincoln on his goal for the war:

>My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that

He saved the Union so he accomplished his goal for the war.

Yes, and you can consider steps taken by India to have had equal amount of impact if not more in the betterment of oppressed. It may not have been a Big Bang improvement like with American civil war but instead slowly over a few decades it has worked quite well

I'm always in favor of less bloodshed. On that front the UK and India (I think) have done a much better job than the US did.

India caste-based discrimination is as strong as before. All this jobs reservations are created by politicians who want to get the votes of the lower caste but this is just a show. The real test of the pudding is that the dalits fare better when the British was running the show.

I'm not sure about the last sentence. India had a literacy rate of 16% when the British left and education was monopolized by non-Dalits/SC/STs AFAIK. Do you have numbers?

Violence against the dalits is much worst than when the British was running the show. At least during the Raj times, a dalit can reasonably count on the British to deliver justice when the higher caste rape or kill their family members. Nowadays if a dalit dare to speak up or go to a police more violence will descend upon them. Passing a law here or there for show or having a tribal as president is nothing when the culture is caste ridden. You can't legislate morality is what I am saying.

Citation needed. You can't just make claims without any supporting evidence.

India's HDI (Human Development Index) is worse than half of sub-Sahara African countries. Who bear the brunt of this dire statistics? The higher caste or the dalits and the adivasis? India should spend money on this vulnerable people but the Modi government is talking of spending money to dress up the capital or other vanity projects. When confront Indian will readily cite they have a dalit president or this or that to address Western sensibilities but the ground reality is that Indian's caste culture hasn't changed. And that is the problem.

Are Dalits better off today or under the Raj? Are they closer to parity with upper castes in terms of education and health outcomes?

I avoid speaking here since this is an American website and I don't expect them to be educated about non American things. But you are just making shit up and I would like to know your motives behind it.

The leaps and bounds of improvement in lives of lower caste people is one of the primary reason why casteism is not going away. Unlike racism, anyone can claim to be of any caste and there is literal riots happening to be classified as lower caste so that people can claim the benefit. As I said, I don't plan to start an argument here but you are lying and you should tell us why.

This is just your opinion. The reservations have changed lives of millions of lower caste people.

India is more of an ally to the US than Russia. The prime minister openly asked for the war to stop, which is hardly a show of support.

I don't see how you can complain about environmental impact when the average Apple user in the US probabaly has an order of magnitude higher impact on the environment than the average Indian.

Russia’s ally is a stretch. It wouldn’t go to war against the west with Russia. Russia is a resource rich nation, and India needs resource. That’s it. The cheap military hardware helps too.

In effect financing russia’s war machine against a european country. Totally not cool.

The EU was also financing a war against a European country until about a month ago. At the tune of around 400 million EUR a week (correct me if wrong) in gas it purchased from Russia.

With Germany being by far the biggest buyer.

What's your point?

Germany was under a lot of pressure to end its reliance on russian gas and got a lot of flack for having allowed such high dependency. Its also a supplier of weapons and financial aid as well as a member of nato. As you can see even between allies there is a lot of critique. I suppose the question is, what is _your_ point?

I think the point is that's a little bit more complicated than you make it out to be. The USA is also "supporting the war effort" by buying fertilizer, etc from them.

Thats just whataboutism. Also the us of a is pretty much leading the effort for ukraine’s independence along with the uk.

If it is just whataboutism, then why bother.

India is a major US military equipment importer today by slowly pivoting from USSR tech & also a significant business partner to the US. Many multiples higher than its trade with Russia. Thats real $. We could similarly argue India is supporting the US efforts by supporting its revenue.

The German government screwed up royally and it’s probably one of the only things trump got right when he said it was stupid to depend on Russian gas.

They should never have phased out nuclear power.

Blah blah blah. Europe trades with Russia and it all that matters. Sugarcoating does not help. And India does not need it any less than Europe.

That's a bit uncharitable view considering Russia was getting $1B+ from EU block for gas via Nord Stream 1 every single week until very recently. Indian imports pale in that comparison, being a tiny fraction of that amount.

If you're gonna point fingers at least lets do it with the facts being straight.

Truthfully, diplomatic relationship isn't a black & white, zero-sum kind of game. The fact that US policies change so erratically gives a lot of countries low confidence from going all-in. The stake is population of 1.4B & a mostly modest per capita income. When you got mouths to feed, war in a distant land makes less sense.

Edit: typo

You know which Russian gas pipeline is still in operation?

The one that goes through Ukraine.

These things are a tad more complicated.

Does India imports more gas from Russia than EU?

So only financing wars against Middle-Eastern countries is fine?

I wasnt aware india is doing that but that should also stop.

I don't think India wages proxy wars in Middle east. They are geographically separate by at least a thousand miles.

> India is russia’a ally and we shouldn't depend on it either.

This statement lacks nuance regarding the dynamics of the region. India has to negotiate with China, Pakistan, Russia, EU, US and others. India tries to balance the situation as best they know how, and each party doesn’t always get everything they want.

Recently India had China right on their doorstep/border and I expect it put a bit of strain on the India-Russia relations due to the ties between Russia and China. It looks like that situation has cooled down some, which is positive.

I’d prefer the US engage with India in a way that strengthens our shared values and our trading interests.

holy crap dude. read a book or something about India. India has class related problems because of economic disparity and caste (in ALL religions) does play a role but not central to it. It is akin to racism problem in USA, outlawed but will take some time to fully go away. Do not confuse it with dalit oppression. Dalits are as ministers in democratic process, film stars, athletes, in military and top institutes. What are your news sources about India ? I am worried you are being misled by agenda based reporting. Block NYT and WaPo posting on India right away for a better understanding of the country.

This statement makes no sense. You're putting out political opinions on the lives of people without any idea of the reality.

The caste system was a part of India but every Government since independence has made attempts and continues to make everything possible to make the lives of the historically lower castes better off.

Not to mention India was forced to become a USSR ally because the USA had sent their aircraft carrier in a India Pakistan war to support the Pakistan side. And then the USSR sent their aircraft carrier in India's defence.

India is also a US ally: https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-with-india/

> India is russia’a ally

India’s geopolitical focus was Pakistan. In that, Russia was a good ally. As that shifts towards Beijing, Moscow becomes one of the worst possible defence partners.

India does business with Russia that does not mean they are allied. Allied means India would be participating in the Ukraine conflict like Bulgaria.

But I get what you mean, they have similar relationships with China and the US as well, they are a sovreim nation that do what they think is best for their people.

India is not Russia's ally, it is also not Russia's foe. They are aligned with each other on some issues (like Pakistan), disagree on other things, like the war in Ukraine.

Apple should move from US? As if US doesn’t countries like Dubai, and Israel which promote active killing of innocent journalists. Has many of its states controlling womens rights? Bailouts and supports companies like Exonn or BP that caused severe disasters?

My reading of the situation is that India is not necessarily pro-Russia, instead its position on Russia vs the West and Russia vs Ukraine is to quote Trump "very fine people on both sides" which may be problematic in of itself but is less red-flaggy than "pro-Russia".

Calling out societal problems is not racism. Indians calling out police violence in the US wouldn't be racism either.

Thank you. I have precisely zero negative feelings towards indians. Incidentally in a previous comment i criticised what i perceive as wests’ declining freedoms. We should he allowed to discuss such topics without being slandered as racist.

Calling out societal problems is not racism, but using that pretext to undermine a whole country when you don't even have a tiny bit of idea on what the ground situation is, it's definitely racist.

It would have been racist if i said anything about indians. But i appreciate the attempt at projecting racism on me instead of focusing on india’s racism towards the lower castes. I wouldnt in good faith and conscience buy a product made by exploiting those people. Countries can be criticised, nothing racist in that.

That prejudice in your comment towards India, also you seem more than okay consuming products made by a country that has a large section of it's minority population in correction camps, Countries can be criticised if you're objective in that, here you're not only biased but actively undermining a country based on your prejudice.

That's the whole point, we're not okay consuming products made by these types of countries, that's why there is an effort to move production elsewhere. This thread is discussing why the alternative may be better but not good overall.

Your racism shows in your tone deaf comments. Give me a first world country name, and I will give you links to the same behaviour of the said country vs India.