Ask A Genius 414 – ‘American Food’ in China: China is Eating Our Lunch
October 16, 2018
[Beginning of recorded material]
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Why is China eating our – Americans’ – lunch? What is the anecdote?
Rick Rosner: I bought on eBay Minoxidil, which is this stuff that I use to try and keep my hair. For 99.6% less than I used to pay for it, it is super cheap. When it first came out, it was by prescription in the 80s.
Now, I just paid less than 67 cents per bottle of 5% solution. That’s just crazy. This is with shipping included. It is because you can buy a drum of the stuff, of the powder in China. It may show in a 45- or 55-gallon drum and then you can sell it.
The per unit cost per bottle may be 20 cents per bottle. One time, I spilled some on a tablecloth and mashed the tablecloth on me, the Minoxidil, because that stuff was precious back in the day.
Now, it is cheap. The deal is, if you can find what you need from China, you will pay 90% less than what you would otherwise. It is not good news. It is good news for a while for consumers. But it is not good for us in the longer term.
Because it means that we will get our asses kicked by a combination of human capital and high technology, and dedication to progress. Also, it is a low wage environment over there.
As I have said before, it is the worst possible time to have America governed by a bunch of morons. If you let America do what America has done for more than a century, America will do okay and will possibly do great.
But if you have a political party that cynically tries to strip America of what makes us legitimately great, we will get crushed by what you called the big three, where there is a big four with America. You mentioned Nigeria.
[End of recorded material]
Authors[1]
Rick Rosner
American Television Writer
Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Editor-in-Chief, In-Sight Publishing
Footnotes
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Rick Rosner 