Moving 1000s of Factoies

Dominated by heavy industry, Hebei province surrounds Beijing and has been blamed for the serious smog problems in the capital. Photo: Simon Song

There's two ways you can move 1000s of factories. You can do it like Stalin did in WW2 and just pick them up bodily, load them on trains and haul them half way across the country. Or you do like the US did and just change the rules and the factories will pack up and move of their own volition.

Yesterday's video was all about when the Nazis attacked in WW2, the Soviet Union moved a boatload of factories east. The number of factories mentioned was 1,500, which prompted anonymous to comment:

1500 so how many went from U.S.A to china

Well, how many was it Google? I had to scroll down (one whole screen's worth) past all the recent new reports of US companies leaving China but eventually we got to some relevant stuff. The first one was from Politifact, I don't know how good they are, but they agreed with Donald Trump, something I would never expect from them.

Donald Trump stated on March 20, 2017 in remarks at a Kentucky rally:

"Since China joined — that’s another beauty — the WTO in 2001, the U.S. has lost many more than 60,000 factories."

60,000 factories gone to China means, what? 6 million people out of work? No wonder Trump got elected. People talk about the deep state, which sounds kind of ominous, but I think what we have at work is a pack mentality. People connected with the government are enjoying the benefits of that cooperation, they are part of the pack. Everybody else, people not connected with the government except through taxes and voting are not part of the pack. For those in the government camp, all those who are not in their pack don't count. If they get screwed over, it doesn't matter, if they lose their job, their home or even their life, it doesn't matter, they are not part of the government pack. From the viewpoint of the government pack insiders, they don't matter because they are not "one of us".