Comments by "capmidnite" (@capmidnite) on "Asianometry" channel.

  1. When you owe $1 million to the bank, it's your problem. When you owe $100 million to the bank, it's the bank's problem.
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  2. Manchuria actually became a testing ground to nurture new companies outside of the influence of the Zaibatsu. The IJA that ran things was suspicious of the zaibatsu but knew the talent of private entrepreneurs was necessary. Thus Yoshisuke Aikawa, the founder of Nissan, was tapped to help establish the Manchurian Industrial Development Company.
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  3. What an interesting contrast to POSCO, South Korea's attempt at building up an indigenous steel industry. It was initially predicted to be an expensive failure but ended up producing steel at competitive prices and ended up supplying Korean industrial sectors such as automobiles and construction.
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  4. Many other underdeveloped countries received massive amounts of foreign aid and tried to build export-oriented industries around the same time (1950s 60’s 70s) but failed to mature the same way the Korean economy did.
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  5. 12:49 I wonder why Indian had customs duty on fab equipment? Typically such duties are to protect domestic makers of such equipment. Which don't exist in India, I believe?
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  6. I think the Industrial Revolution in Europe wasn’t started by the established landed aristocracy. Rather, it was the upstart merchant class and “hands on” type of men that built the first factories and companies.
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  7. MIT's nickname in the 1980s was "Made in Taiwan" because it had so many Taiwanese grad students.
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  8. I heard in the 1990s Japanese chip engineers moonlighted for up and coming Korean chip fab companies, which wasn't too hard to do considering it's only a 2.5 hour flight between the two countries. Since then, Japanese chip companies have never recovered their position, at least in sectors such as memory.
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  9.  @leothelion6075  I think until a generation ago the Japanese had a reputation for IP theft and mimicry. And mercantile trade policies.
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  10. Ssang Yong is a very niche Korean automaker, largely unknown outside of South Korea. However, in the early 1990s Mercedes Benz found them good enough to do some technology and platform sharing with them. Ssang Yong's Chairman sedan is based on the E-class and their SUVs used MB drivetrains.
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  11. In both South Korea and Taiwan, the most prestigious flagship university of each country has their origins in the Imperial Japanese University system. SNU in Korea started out as Keijo Imperial University and NTU in Taiwan started out as Taihoku Imperial University. In both countries, these universities are seen as being a notch above the next top universities and have produced a disproportionate number of political leaders, CEOs and professionals.
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  12.  @thetigerii9506  Singapore while East Asian in culture isn’t part of geographic East Asia.
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  13.  @geraldh.8047  True but I always thought customs duty as a steady revenue source for the government was more of a 19th century idea, before taxes.
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  14. I'm still trying to figure out how 1% control of a typical Korean company translates to a controlling interest in the whole group by the founding family. I "get" how cross-holding works in theory but why would the other shareholders put up with this arrangement?
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  15. I wonder if it is possible for chip making to become a lost art in the future, maybe because of conflict in the region? There's so much know-how, experience and IP involved, not just capital equipment and raw materials. Technology can become "lost." The rockets and other equipment used in the Apollo mission cannot be duplicated anymore, even though the blueprints are still around. Or take a Stradivarius, which no one today has been able to duplicate. Or the secret of Damascus steel, which has never been exactly duplicated by modern sword smiths.
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  16. Ah, Mitsubishi. The fabled Japanese zaibatsu which helped build and arm Japan from the Meiji Era to the modern era.
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  17.  @francisdayon  “We need to move the system to meritocracy where capable leaders are promoted.” Who does the “promoting” and how? You seem to admire the Chinese model of authoritarian technocratic leadership combined with a strongman (Xi) on top. Chinese leaders get to the top through years of internal power building and back scratching in the CCP. The Japanese government with its elite bureaucracy has also followed a technocratic model since the Meiji Era with various levels of authoritarianism and militarism creeping in. The rules and rights based Constitutional government of the United States has been around since 1776 (when the rest of the world was under some form of tyranny) and has so far brought prosperity, rule of law and freedom to the American people. Even countries in Europe in that span of time have flirted with dictatorship, fascism, Communism and numerous revolutions. You seem to have little faith in representative democracy.
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  18.  @yixuanzhong6568  Right, but does India have a significant foundry production machinery industry that needs to be protected? Not the fab industry but the actual equipment.
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  19.  @ZontarDow  Maybe in financial terms the colonies didn't make sense. But in terms of strategic value and prestige, Japan's first colonies (Taiwan and Korea) were immensely valuable. They showed the world Japan was a colonizing power just like Britain and France. And during WW2 both colonies ended up contributing about 200,000 soldiers each to the war effort.
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  20. And ironically, when you take your cell phone out of your pocket to look at the time, you're doing the same thing people did with their pocket watches before wrist watches became a thing.
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  21. I think in the 1980s there was also a scandal where Toshiba sold machine tools to the Soviets necessary to make quieter submarine propellers.
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  22. Sorry, but "America" as short-hand for the USA has a long history of use and is not the same as calling China "Asia." The US was called "America" long before any other country in the Western hemisphere became independent.
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  23.  @kurikuraconkuritas  Uh no, not everything is about TRUMP. Japan and Korea have had their own local disputes. The most recent was sparked when the Korean courts upheld a suit against Japanese companies for compensation for forced labor during WW2 and allowed Japanese assets in South Korea to be seized. The Japanese retaliated by slowing the export of chemicals needed for semi-conductor production to Korea.
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  24. I guess the biggest example would be China or the USA (which has a strategic interest in maintaining its domestic fab capability). However, the question then arises how independent does the domestic fab industry have to be? Crucial components in fab production such as hydrogen flouride, lithography machines and software are controlled by a few countries.
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  25.  @hoangle2483  The US economy is so huge and diversified it can’t really be dominated by a handful of companies like the Korean economy. There ARE regional centers of corporate influence such as the DuPont company in Delaware, or the Ford Motor Company which has been controlled by the Ford family like a chaebol.
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  26.  @hoangle2483  I understand that green card holders in India are highly sought after candidates for marriage.
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  27. The growth of the Korean economy in the 1960 through the 80s was built on a fast-follower model, with rapid absorption of technology and processes already developed overseas. The challenge facing the Korean economy now is to develop the NEXT generation of industries and tech, without knowing what it will be. In some ways, that's as much of a challenge as what faced Korean engineers in the old days.
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  28. The Chinese characters for chaebol are the same as “zaibatsu” (or family wealth), incidentally.
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  29.  @francisdayon  I don’t know what country you are from but in the USA the mayor of a city isn’t directly responsible for “growth.” The job of a mayor is to provide for the public safety and public necessities (roads, parks) for the citizens. I believe there’s an Asianometry video about the problems China is having with debt bubbles, real estate crashing and provincial leaders throwing up a mirage of “growth” that is fueled by unsustainable debt.
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  30. One side effect of the collapse of the American shoe manufacturing industry is that the few Made in USA shoe brands that are left have become highly desirable worldwide, with a cult following (especially in East Asia). Brands such as Red Wing boots and New Balance.
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  31. Remember all that “Japan is taking over” anxiety in the 1980s? And movies like Black Rain? The world sure looks different today.
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  32. The Singaporeans are like the Dutch of the East. They make money through trade and shipping and yet they also have high value-added industries.
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  33.  @mrwideboy  I believe the quote is attributed to J Paul Getty.
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  34. Most Taiwanese I meet seem to have a positive view of the Japanese people and culture. One Taiwanese told me the Japanese intended Taiwan to be a model colony of sorts, a place where Japanese could retire to at the end of their working careers.
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  35.  @Vlasov45  I think they still name Shinkansen trains after the high speed steam locomotives of the Manchurian Railway. The lost dream of Manchuria still haunts the Japanese imagination.
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  36. No mention of the classic 1986 movie Gung Ho inspired by the Nummi plant?
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  37.  @msp5138 You are just babbling at this point. A city can have little economic growth but still have an established tax base. For example, NYC has been losing jobs and corporate HQs in the past decade. The state of New York on the whole has average 1 % growth. The big topics in the past NYC mayoral race was crime and Progressive politics, not “growth.” The people continue to elect the same stupid politicians again and again.
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  38. To everyone trying to point out the correct pronunciation of "Jena", it's like expecting an English speaker to pronounce Paris as "Paree".
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  39.  @appleslover  What about them? It's not some big secret and well documented elsewhere. This channel is about Asian Economies. Admittedly, the local Chinese who provided most of the grunt work for the heavy industries of Manchuria were treated very harshly, almost like slave labor. So maybe that should be mentioned.
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  40. Despite the undue influence, size and power of the chaebols, many if not the majority of South Koreans are proud of their worldwide influence and competitiveness. There’s a “Korea is a small country” mentality and the assumption is that South Korean companies can only compete with established Western and Japanese companies by being huge. Also, the Netherlands (for example) is dominated by a handful of huge companies such as Shell but outsiders don’t perceive the Dutch economy as being one dominated by “the rich.”
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  41. 4:09 The former RCA building is now a converted apartment complex in Camden, NJ. The surrounding area is a desolate industrial wasteland.
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  42. Not really, SK stands for Sunkyong Group, the original holding company that bought out Hynix.
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  43.  @SMGJohn  But the North Korean steel mills were built by the Japanese.
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  44. And Apple watch batteries last less than a day before needing to be charged!
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  45. One thing Koreans will never admit is that the Japanese colonial period laid the foundations of a modern society. The Japanese introduced mass education and dismantled the feudal order of old Chosun. The Korean population doubled during the colonial period. By 1945 there was a small nucleus of educated Koreans with technical and managerial skills. The founder of Samsung went to Waseda University, for example. And Park Chung Hee was proud of his service in the Imperial Japanese Army.
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  46. The Taiwanese also have a virtual monopoly on the mid-price tier bicycle and component manufacturing market. But I guess that's a story for a different time.
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  47. 17:31 Nice reference! I believe the original quote is "Nobunaga pounded the rice, Hideyoshi baked the cake and Tokugawa ate it" in reference to the final winner of the Sengoku Wars. Although, the industry is so fast moving who knows what the outcome will be in 10 to 20 years?
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  48. The lens is a critical part of the lithography machines but so what? Canon and Nikon tried to compete with ASML but couldn't. It wasn't because of the lens technology. It was because of all the know-how and components that ASML put together in one machine.
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  49. The short history is that there was this Miracle on the Han in which the South Koreans rose from Third World status to First World through sheer grit and determination, coupled with ever rising exports and climbing up the value chain (from wigs to textiles to cheap electronics to semiconductors). What the Koreans will never directly acknowledge is that Japanese colonization brought to Korea modern education and infrastructure (like Taiwan and their colonization by the Japanese). It was true the Japanese built an economy designed to serve their interests, but they did introduce mass education and the rail lines they built are still used today. After they left, a small nucleus of native Korean technocrats, engineers and professionals remained. The best university in Korea (SNU) has its roots in Keijo Imperial University, for example. The Korean War brought an influx of American military contracts and know-how (many Korean construction companies got their start working with the US Army Corps of Engineers).
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  50.  @inomo  A Mexican, Canadian or even an inhabitant of the USA is "North American."
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  51. I believe the Korean shipyards increasingly employ welders and other workers from countries such as Vietnam because young Koreans don't want to do such work anymore.
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  52. Kodak is a sad shell of its former self.
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  53. China invading Taiwan would be a disaster for the world economy (and China's manufacturing) as IT supply chains get abruptly disrupted. Even if the invasion was quick, short and minimally disruptive, TSMC might not be viable over the long term if key personnel flee to other countries. A company is not just the sum of its physical capital but also includes it intangible capital: the engineers and technicians who might be strongly anti-PRC.
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  54.  @greatwolf5372  The Korean manufacturers already have to import welders and other shipyard workers from countries such as Vietnam because young Koreans don't want to do such work.
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  55.  @francisdayon  Long term prosperity arises from creating a diversified economy that offers opportunities for skilled workers with a variety of talent and skills. You think real estate bubbles create wealth? Why don’t you read up on the Dutch Tulip Mania.
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  56.  @francisdayon  The “majority” of American build their wealth with housing bubbles? Historically, real estate has basically just kept up with inflation. Housing bubbles in the USA happen most in densely populated coastal areas such as the SF Bay Area, NYC, etc and benefit those who are already wealthy. I’m not if you really even are using the word “bubble” right or understand what you are spouting. Investors over the long term prefer steady growth not “bubbles” because bubbles inevitably end up popping. Like the Japanese bubble economy of the 80s and early 90s. Real estate prices took 20 years to go back to their previous levels.
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  57.  @francisdayon  You are perfectly entitled to your opinion. I am curious, you keep talking about “we” “over here” and “we are just a modern day colony.” What country are you from?
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  58.  @SMGJohn  Just how many steel and iron complexes do you think N Korea has? Hundreds? Tens? The Chollima iron and steel works is the largest in North Korea and the subject of numerous visits from the top leadership.
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  59. A list of the top 10 richest families in the USA is much different from the same list from 20 or 30 years ago.
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  60.  @srinivasgorur-shandilya1788  Weimar is a city in Germany.
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  61.  @inomo  What do you mean by "wrong" and "right"? Geographic labels of nations and cultures are often not precise or "right." Why is the Netherlands sometimes referred to as "Holland" when Holland is just a province in that country? Are Russians Asian or European (most of their landmass is in Asia)? Why are Japanese, Koreans and Chinese referred to as East Asian but Russians in Vladivostok aren't? Why is the West called the "West" when to an African it is NORTH of them?
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  62.  @inomo  I don't know why are you are so fixated on identifying what continent you are from. I've met Peruvians, Brazilians, etc that easily say they're from South America. Or Guatemalans, El Salvadorians that say they're from Latin America. Or Jamaicans that say they're from the Caribbean. For whatever reason, Mexicans and Canadians only say what country they're from so I guess they're stuck with the existential angst of being "American" but not a US American. You really are stuck in a quixotic struggle against this "American" terminology.
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  63. Depends on how far back you're talking about. The jump from carburetors to electronic fuel ignition was a huge improvement. But then cars started getting loaded down with 10 airbags, ESC, infotainment systems. And cars have subsequently gotten heavier and more complicated. Many consider 1990s cars to have the right balance of technology, just enough to be a significant improvement over what came before.
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  64.  @caonabocruzG  "but fixing the stuff is a nightmare and selling them for a good price after 5~10 years is a challenge." You must have owned only German cars because Toyotas and Hondas are still very low maintenance after 5 years. I have a 2004 Lexus RX with 95,000 miles and all it needs is regular oil changes.
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  65.  @موسى_7  Except in this case it’s not obvious because “chaebol” and “zaibatsu” are not similar at first glance, at least in pronunciation or English transliteration.
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  66. Not sure if the TCR was a "more aerodynamic" design. If you look at a bike straight on, a sloping top tube doesn't make it more aero. As you said, I think the TCR makes it easier for manufacturers to make more universal sizes (S,M,L) instead of 22 different frames. So-called innovations in the bike industry recently have been to make things easier or simpler for the manufacturer (cartridge bearings, PressFit bottom brackets, etc).
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  67.  @lengould9262  I think you're thinking of the light truck market, which was hit by the "chicken tariff." The American makers have a virtual lock on the full size truck market because a Made in USA identity is part of the full size truck image.
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  68. Probably should have mentioned the Showa Steel Works in Manchuko.
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  69. Leica, the other fine German optic company, competes with Zeiss in some products such as binoculars but not the semi-conductor stepper market. Leica however dominates the high-end German photography industry with its M-series cameras and lenses. Today, almost all Zeiss-branded camera lenses are made by Japanese companies. I wonder why Leica never tried to break into the stepper market. Maybe it only has room for one player, at least in Europe?
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  70. The old RCA building in Camden NJ is still standing, converted into loft apartments.
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  71.  @francisdayon  The Amazon HQ2 search was one very high profile case. Companies will naturally move to jurisdictions that offer a good business environment. In the past year over 100 companies moved from California to Texas without fanfare. They moved not just because of the efforts of one mayor of one city but because of the overall benefits of moving to Texas. Mayor of cities do not have control over state taxes or regulations.
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  72.  @SMGJohn  Heavy machinery is often salvageable after an aerial bombing raid. The Germans in WW2 got their aircraft factories up and running a in a couple days after massive Allied bombing raids. The fact remains the Chollima iron and steel complex was built by the Japanese.
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  73. The Japanese camera industry catching up with the Germans can be explained in a nutshell. They copied German designs mostly until the late 1950s. Then Nikon came out with their F series SLR and the rest is history.
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  74.  @RodrigoCh  True but I don’t think any other industry got dominated so swiftly and completely like the camera market by the Japanese. For example it took decades for Japanese car makers to establish themselves and there is plenty of competition from other countries. In contrast, the Nikon F was quickly adopted by professionals and German makers became a niche part of the market.
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  75.  @zukacs  A high end bicycle with a carbon fiber frame, as opposed to aluminum or steel alloy.
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  76.  @diavalus  And the sum can be greater than the individual parts. That's why people are fanboys of well-integrated products such as the iphone.
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  77. There's an interesting story of a Navajo Indian named Joe Kieyoomia who was captured while fighting in the Pacific Theater. His captors assumed he was a Japanese American and hence a traitor and tortured him for months until he finally convinced them he wasn't.
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  78. Most older fridges from any manufacturer tend to last.
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  79.  @grizwoldphantasia5005  I was referring mainly to the act of reaching into one’s pocket and taking out the phone or watch, as opposed to looking at one’s wrist to see the time.
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  80. I believe Hyundai shipyards in Ulsan offers factory tours. I went to the Mitsubishi Industries museum in Nagasaki, which is located inside the shipyard facilities. The museum contained displays of old machinery, tools and photos from Mitsubishi history and the building itself was a pattern making shop built in the 1800s. In the shipyard was a Giant Cantilever Crane imported from Scotland in 1909 and I believe it is the oldest still-working shipyard crane in the world.
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  81. There's actually a profound link between the early Soviet Five Year plans and East Asian economies. Nobusuke Kishi visited the USSR in 1929 and was quite impressed with their model of rapid industrialization, with a focus on heavy industry. As Minister of Industrial Development in Japanese-occupied Manchukuo, he was able to try out this model with ruthless disregard for Chinese workers. However, unlike the USSR, the Manchukuo model harnessed the talents of private capitalists, albeit under state guidance. A Korean serving in the Japanese Army in Manchuria witnessed this rapid development. His name: Park Chung Hee, future authoritarian President of South Korea. His Five Year plans for the South Korean economy closely resembled Kishi's Manchukuo plans. Future video on this topic?
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  82. I think Tern / Dahon are American companies founded by a Taiwanese American with Taiwan-based manufacturing?
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  83. How about an article about hydrogen flouride and how a couple years ago the Japanese government sorta banned the sale of this essential chemical to Korean semiconductor companies? The Koreans had their own manufacturers, except they couldn't make it pure enough. But the move might have backfired on the Japanese because the Koreans became less reliant on them.
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  84.  @inomo  What free, independent and sovereign country existed in the Western hemisphere before the US? I'm aware the New World was referred to as the Americas since the days of exploration. Anyway, the new country at its inception in 1776 was called "The United States of America" and its citizens became known as " Americans." Monroe Doctrine came in the 1820s.
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  85.  Zaydan Naufal  I wouldn't say Japan is necessarily "declining." More like seeing very sluggish growth, along with a rapidly aging population.
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  86. If this video was going to start with the history of the automotive, it would have been worth mentioning electric cars were competitive with the IC engine cars in the early days. Before the invention of the starter, they were preferred by female drivers for their ease of use.
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  87. 6:48 I think the Ship of Theseus analogy applies only to physical objects, not corporations and foundations which are essentially creatures of legal fiction.
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  88. Deer are a huge nuisance in the suburbs of East Coast America where I live. They have no predators and multiply like rabbits and eat everything.
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  89. There are still older apartment complexes in South Korea with the Daewoo logo on them.
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  90. Why is it evil sounding? Your remark has a whiff of anti-Semitism to it.
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  91. My 20 year microwave is going strong but the interior looks cruddy.
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  92.  @Schinshikss  South Korea, Taiwan and Japan of course also had the advantage of being military wards of the USA since WW2.
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  93.  @Schinshikss  One critique of Studwell's land reform analysis is that correlation isn't causation. And are small farms the most efficient? The most efficient and productive farmland in the world is in the American Midwest, where most of the land is owned by huge corporations that employ wage labor. Studwell's thesis is ultimately one unproven thesis among many trying to explain the rise of the Asian tigers.
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  94. @NoodleDance "but I imagine SK got a lot of help from the US. Just a hypothesis." Since the Korean War, the USA has guaranteed South Korea's national security. The Korean construction industry got its start and know-how from the US Army Corps of Engineers who gave Korean firms many projects. During the Vietnam War, Korean firms sold tons of supplies to the US forces. The USA also opened its market to Korean imports.
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  95.  @fannyalbi9040  North America includes Canada, Mexico (and the smaller countries below it) and the United States. Canada is a sovereign nation.
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  96.  @موسى_7  You can "believe" what you want, North and South America are separate and there are 7 continents. Some people say "Eurasia" is one continent but it is widely accepted Europe and Asia are in fact separate, to give another example.
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  97.  @inomo  You must sound a bit idiotic telling people everywhere you go you are "American" and then having to clarify you're not from the United States.
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  98. You seem hung up on the wrongness of calling the USA "America." So tell me, why do people refer to the Spanish language and Spanish-speaking countries when the languages spoken in Spain are Castilian, Catalan and Basque? That seems wrong. We should be referring to "Castilian-speaking countries."
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  99. It also helps that their national defense has basically been outsourced to the United States military.
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  100.  @restojon1  I always wondered how they managed to convince Daimler Benz to strike up a partnership with them.
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  101. I'm confused. The Plaza Accord which resulted in the JPY appreciating was mid-1980s while the bike boom was early to mid 1970s.
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  102. 5:39 "Reverse engineer" : A euphemism for copied without license, hence saving money on original design and engineering.
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  103.  @UbermanNullist  "Also, the Japanese government prohibited the establishment of universities in Korea." I guess you never heard of Keijo Imperial University in Seoul? Which happened to the predecessor to SNU. Granted the majority of the students were Japanese but there were Korean students.
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  104.  @UbermanNullist  What are you talking about? The Japanese established universal basic education in Korea for the first time in its history. If Koreans weren't educated, how did Lee Byung Chul (the founder of Samsung) attend Waseda University, one of the best universities in Japan?
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  105.  @eduwino151  I can just imagine the helicopters hovering overhead with their cables and grappling hooks and the engineers holding on as everything goes BOOM.
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  106.  @ROIDDDDD  What are you talking about? You think the US Navy is going to hand shipbuilding contracts to Korean shipyards? The South Koreans don’t even have one aircraft carrier.
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  107.  @ROIDDDDD  Why don't you brush up on your English before you post? I don't understand what you are trying to say.
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  108. I think mechanical calculators will make a comeback when the next big EMP strike (from the sun or a nuke) instantly zaps all electronics.
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  109. The video touched upon but didn't elaborate on two things: (1) The Korean industrial workforce as a whole is getting older and expensive. Korean shipyards now routinely employ welders and other workers from SE Asian countries such as Vietnam, on working visas because young Koreans don't want to do such work and (2) every country (UK, USA, etc) that used to have a domestic shipbuilding industry has followed the same cycle of increasing government subsidies to prop up domestic industries in the face of fierce foreign competition, only to eventually throw in the towel after realizing it was a useless endeavor. The US does have the Jones Act to preserve a minimal amount of domestic commercial shipbuilding capacity, though. Also, the USA will always retain its military ship building capacity.
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  110.  @Dave_Sisson  Most surviving Swiss watch companies are owned by the Swatch Group and many models across different brands share the same movements. Rolex and Patek being one of the few independent ones.
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  111. I had the chance to take a cycling trip around the Inland Sea in Japan, where Imabari Shipyards is located. Some of the factory buildings are right up against the road and you can look in and see the workers and half-finished pieces and hear the pounding of machinery. The Hyundai shipyards in Ulsan are fenced off though and can only be seen from a distance.
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  112.  @푸른마  Thank you, I didn't realize they have to pay a royalty to GTT for the LNG ships. LNG ships are one category the Korean shipbuilders are moving into, to get away from Chinese competition.
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  113.  @Schinshikss  Zimbabwe tried out "land reform" and ended up destroying the economy.
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  114. How is your Rolex seized and needing a rebuild every 10 years? Is it an antique model? Cause modern Rolexes run like . . . a Swiss watch!
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  115.  @joaocosta3374  My minute repeater is so lame. I can barely hear it across the room.
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  116.  @Dave_Sisson  The United States still makes its own aircraft carriers, submarines and other military ships. And the outdated Jones Act which requires domestic shipping to use USA-made ships keeps a little bit of commercial shipbuilding capacity alive.
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  117.  @lengould9262  I always imagine the fuel injection era as beginning in the mid to late 80s, when the technology finally matured and became mainstream, with electronic computer control. I am aware the tech was around before that, albeit in a cruder form.
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  118. According to the screenshot at 15:14 Ibiden, JSr (chip packaging, materials). I know for example that Japanese firms pretty much have a monopoly on ultra-pure hydrogen flouride to clean semiconductors.
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  119. It's a gun so hopefully it's reliable! Can't say the same about their cars, though.
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  120.  @richardbloemenkamp8532  Fair enough, their earlier model lineup looked very generic and even their current designs can pass for something from China, for example. The current lineup of Pyeonghwa Motors from North Korea looks like it could have been made by anyone too.
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  121. In South Korea there's a similar local beef called hanwoo and in fact the Korean cows are closely related to Japanese cows. It has fat than wagyu and thus less "melt in your mouth" than wagyu, but has a distinct flavor. Australian and American beef is available too in the Korean market but hanwoo commands a higher premium. Unlike wagyu, hanwoo is exported in very minuscule amounts and thus virtually impossible to find outside Korea.
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  122. 15:33 That's a picture of the Showa Steel Works in Japanese-occupied Manchuria, during the 1930s.
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  123. Second!
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  124.  @amerigo88  The motorcycle fork brand? Showa was the name of the Japanese emperor's reign when the steel works were built.
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  125.  @excitedbox5705  Well I meant the optics in the stepper.
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  126. So if fabs consumer so much water, why are they building one in Arizona?
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  127.  @wolfgangselle4307  Sure, that explains the finances of it. But I'm still trying to figure out the "common sense" of it. With enough tax incentives, one can install solar panels above the Arctic Circle. Or grow water-intensive crops in the desert.
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  128.  @francisdayon  “If they don’t hit their metrics they don’t get promoted.” Why this emphasis on “metrics?” The inevitable result of emphasizing metrics (tangible numbers) is that first, the metrics will get fudged by those whose job is to compile and report them because they are working for the government and second, the politicians will start governing first and foremost to “hit the metrics.” Whatever the cost. Maybe in a business setting “hitting the metrics” is a good idea (sales figures, cost cutting, balance sheets, etc) but you think governing a state or city or country with its many variables and competing constituencies and demands can distilled down to “hitting metrics”?
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  129.  @francisdayon  China has a huge problem with provincial governors and local leaders reporting massaged “metrics” to Beijing in order to look good.
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  130.  @msp5138  “The West got rich because it colonised . . .” And in that same period of time non-western powers such as the Mughals and Manchus were busy conquering and exploiting other people. The West got rich because it created the Industrial Revolution and the Scientific Revolution. You think the steam engine and science was “stolen” from African people?
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  131.  @qjtvaddict  How is the US a “complete failure”? What political system is perfect? The USA is mid-pack according to corruption indexes compiled by NGOs.
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  132.  @RM-el3gw  Any watch going for $12 will break (usually the band) within a year or two.
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  133. But how does land reform that divvies up land to numerous small owners foster industrialization and the growth of a modern economy? The Enclosure Acts of the 1700s and 1800s in the UK led to the previously commonly-held land to be monopolized by landlords. The result was many landless tenants flocking to urban areas and providing a workforce for the factories. Meanwhile, the landlords who held the land were incentivized to use it more productively and make improvements.
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  134. I think what should also be mentioned is how Giant and the Taiwanese bike industry in general has achieved massive economies of scale with modern automated factories that can't be duplicated elsewhere. Giant still manufactures for companies such as Trek. It is a virtuous cycle, where economies of scale leads to lower production costs, which leads to more brand-name bike companies realizing it's cheaper to sub-contract Giant to manufacture their mid-level bikes and slap their label on it.
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  135. Big chaebols such as Hyundai like to play up their scrappy rags to riches founding stories. The founder of Hyundai for example was a farmer’s son who fled to Seoul to make it rich. Left unsaid is the massive amounts of government favoritism and cronyism and corruption in the background.
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  136. For English speakers, it would be pronounced with a hard "J." Do you expect an English speaker to pronounce the capitol of Bavaria as "Muenchen"?
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  137.  @indahooddererste  Well, it depends on if there's a commonly accepted word for an American place name in your language. And I'm sure if a native from your country that couldn't speak English at all pronounced "New York", it might come across as something different.
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  138. Except J is never "Y" in English. Why don't English speakers pronounce Munich as "Muenchen"?
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  139.  @arsic094  "Uneducated people see a familiar letter in a foreign word and pronounce it as if it was their own language." But what if the English-pronunciation of the foreign place name has been long accepted and used by everyone from journalists to diplomats? Examples: Paris, Munich, Moscow. Pronouncing "Jena" with a hard "J" sound is a far less butchering of the original than the examples I gave. 99% of the time an English-speaker will pronounce it with the hard "J."
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  140.  @MNkno  The collapse of Japanese Manchuria was pretty swift after the Soviets invaded it during the last days of WW2. I believe many Japanese women and children were left stranded. Some children were even adopted by local Chinese families.
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  141. Third!
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  142. Not mentioned in the video is how after WW2 major German corporations had to give up their patents and IP as part of war reparations. Zeiss lost patent protections for their lens designs and cameras such as the Contax. The Japanese manufacturers Nikon and Canon swooped in. The Contax formed the basis for the Nikon S cameras which in turn formed the basis of the F cameras. After the F cameras came out, the Germans played second fiddle to the Japanese in the professional and mass consumer SLR camera market. Zeiss's current dominance in the lithography machine market at the expense of the Japanese seems like a bit of sweet revenge.
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  143. I guess they hated Samsung because Samsung turned government witness. "Snitches get stitches" holds true both in the criminal world and in the corporate.
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  144.  @thor8086  And don't ask a Taiwanese their opinion about Korean baseball.
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  145. This question has been covered in the discussion thread. That's the German pronunciation. You wouldn't expect an English speaker to pronounce Paris as "Paree"?
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  146.  @MichaelT_123  Is pronouncing Muenchen as Munich a mis-pronunciation of the German?
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  147.  @kurt9395  Um, that's exactly what I've been trying to say. And even for so-called obscure place names, an English speaker looking at the word "Jena" in print would pronounce it with a hard "J".
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  148. The hard "J" is how it is pronounced in English. Like how Nurnberg is pronounced Nuremburg, Muenchen is Munich, Braunschweig is Brunswick. Jena is Jena in written English because I guess it's a simple name.
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  149. Stopped watching after 5 minutes. Video interrupted by YouTube ads every 2 minutes. Lame.
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  150.  @dickiesdocos  Ads every 2 minutes is lame. And these are ads that you can’t block because they interrupt the video. Not sure if content creators can control ad frequency. But anyway I can exercise my right to tune out.
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