O fim da globalização (parte V)

O fim da globalização (parte IV) + Parte I, parte II  e parte III.

O autor prevê o colapso do comércio intercontinental por causa da ascenção da pirataria. Uma perspectiva interessante que nos obriga a pensar no que tomamos como garantido:

"Long-haul transport is what brings everything from areas of high supply to high demand, regardless of participant. For any product that is concentrated in terms of supply or demand, expect market collapse.

...

The Western Hemisphere is fine for foodstuffs and energy but will need to build out its manufacturing capacity for products as wildly varied as laptops and shoes. The German bloc’s manufacturing capacity is largely in-house, but the raw inputs that enable it to operate are wholly absent. The Japanese and Chinese are going to have to head out to secure food and energy and raw materials and markets. It’s a good thing that Japan likes to manufacture products where it sells them, and fields a potent long-reach navy. It’s a bad thing that most of China’s navy can’t make it past Vietnam, even in an era of peace

...

First and most obvious are the pirates. Any zone without a reasonably potent local naval force is one that is all but certain to host Somalia-style pirate harassment. Second and less obvious are the privateers, in essence pirates sponsored by an actual country to harass their competitors, and who have been granted rights to seek succor, fuel, and crew (and sell their *ahem* booty) in allied ports.

...

The third security concern isn’t likely to be constrained to the no-man’s-lands: state piracy. We’re moving into a world where the ability to import anything—whether it be iron ore or diesel fuel or fertilizer or wire or mufflers—will be sharply circumscribed.

...

Everything we’ve come to expect about transport since 1946 dies in this world. Bigger, slower, more specialized vessels are little more than tasty floating buffets for whatever privateer or pirate (state or otherwise) happens to be in the area. Larger vessels might maximize efficiency in a unified, low-threat world, but in a fractured, high-threat environment they also concentrate risk.

...

That’s a massive problem for German manufacturing, as many of its suppliers are from beyond the horizon and roughly half of its customers aren’t even in Europe."

Trechos retirados de "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan. 

O fim da globalização (parte IV)

Recently leaked China's population data confirm my estimates: births began to decline in 1991, with no peak in 2004 or 2011; Population is now less than 1.28 billion, not the official 1.41 billion; Population began to shrink in 2018, not 2031 as officially predicted. pic.twitter.com/xCge7cTRFS

— 易富贤YI Fuxian《大国空巢》 (@fuxianyi) July 9, 2022

Parte I, parte II  e parte III.

"The average grocery store today has about forty thousand individual items, up from about two hundred at the dawn of the twentieth century.

...

Take this concept of utter availability, apply it to absolutely everything, and you now have a glimmer of the absolute connectivity that underpins the modern, globalized economy. The ingredients of today’s industrial and consumer goods are only available because they can be moved from—literally—halfway around the world at low costs and high speeds and in perfect security. Phones, fertilizers, oil, cherries, propylene, single-malt whiskey . . . you name it, it is in motion. All. The. Time. Transportation is the ultimate enabler.

...

The East India Company traded about 50 tons of tea a year at the start of the nineteenth century and 15,000 toward the end of it. Today that same 15,000 tons is loaded or unloaded somewhere in the world every forty-five seconds or so.

...

In the age of globalization, everyone could get in on global access, manufacturing, and mass consumption. No longer was value-added work sequestered to the Imperial Centers. Manufacturing elsewhere required fuel and raw materials. Expanding industrial bases and infrastructure elsewhere required the same. Expanding middle classes elsewhere demanded even more.

...

In a world "safe" for all, the world's "successful" geographies could no longer lord over and/or exploit the rest. A somewhat unintended side effect of this was to demote geography from its fairly deterministic role in gauging the success or failure of a country, to something that became little more than background noise. Those geographies once left behind could now bloom in safety.

...

The ability to diversify supply systems over any distance means it is economically advantageous to break up manufacturing into dozens, even thousands of individual steps. Workers building this or that tiny piece of widget become very good at it, but they are clueless as to the rest of the process. The workforce that purifies silicon dioxide does not and cannot create silicon wafers, does not and cannot build motherboards, and does not and cannot code.

This combination of reach and specialization takes us to a very clear, and foreboding, conclusion: no longer do the goods consumed in a place by a people reflect the goods produced in a place by a people. The geographies of consumption and production are unmoored."

Segundo o autor de "The End of the World is Just the Beginning", Peter Zeihan, a globalização está a descarrilar pelo descalabro demográfico nos países produtores e consumidores, e pelo fim da Ordem Americana. Há muito que escrevo sobre a desglobalização, mas por causa de Mongo. A demografia é uma variável que raramente é considerada como refiro na parte III. 

O fim da globalização (parte III)

Parte I e parte II. 

Na parte II ilustro como o autor aborda o tema do colapso demográfico. Nesta parte III sublinho os trechos que se seguem:

"More products. More players. Bigger markets. More markets. Easier transport. More interconnectivity. More trade. More capital. More technology. More integration. More financial penetration. More and bigger and bigger and more. A world of more.

Ever since Columbus sailed the ocean blue, human economics have been defined by this concept of more. The world's evolution within the idea of more, this reasonable expectation of more, is ultimately what destroyed the old economies of the pre-deepwater imperial and feudal systems. 

...

Geopolitics tells us the post–World War II and especially the post–Cold War economic booms were artificial and transitory. Going back to something more “normal” by definition requires . . . shrinkage. Demographics tells us that the number and collective volume of mass-consumption-driven economies has already peaked. In 2019 the Earth for the first time in history had more people aged sixty-five and over than five and under. By 2030 there will be twice as many retirees, in relative terms.

...

Combine geopolitics and demographics and we know there will be no new mass consumption systems. Even worse, the pie that is the global economy isn't going to simply shrink; it is being fractured into some very nonintegrated pieces, courtesy of American inaction.

...

We aren't simply looking at a demographically induced economic breakdown; we are looking at the end of a half millennium of economic history.

...

First, everything is going to change. Whatever new economic system or systems the world develops will be something we're unlikely to recognize as being viable today. We will probably need far higher volumes of capital (retirees absorb it like sponges), but we'll have far less of it (fewer workers means fewer taxpayers). That suggests economic growth and technological progress (both of which require capital as an input) will stall out.

...

Second, the process will be the very definition of traumatic. The concept of more has been our guiding light as a species for centuries. From a certain point of view, the past seventy years of globalization have simply been "more" on steroids, a sharp uptake on our long-cherished economic understandings. Between the demographic inversion and the end of globalization, we are not simply ending our long experience with more, or even beginning a terrifying new world of less; we face economic free fall as everything that has underpinned humanity's economic existence since the Renaissance unwinds all at once."

Já repararam que no discurso ambiental este tema não é referido? No cenário central, até 2080 Portugal perde 2 milhões de habitantes. Ao mesmo tempo que o número de idosos crescerá mais um milhão de pessoas e a população em idade ativa (15 a 64 anos) diminuirá de 6,6 para 4,2 milhões de pessoas. O tipo e quantidade de consumo vai cair.

O autor, americano, julgo que vítima da doença anglo-saxónica foca-se muito na produção em massa. Teremos menos produção em massa e mais Mongo. Por isso, este capítulo designado "The end of more". Teremos menos globalização e mais blocos económicos.

Trechos retirados de "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan. 

O fim da globalização (parte II)

Part I.

O autor faz uma descrição do rápido envelhecimento das sociedades industrializadas. Aponta para um tipo de economia em que nunca vivemos no passado. No passado, "much of the economic growth comes from a swelling population". Agora, com a paragem do crescimento primeiro e, depois, com o colapso populacional que começará durante esta década, entraremos em "terra incógnita".

"Globalization was always dependent upon the Americans’ commitment to the global Order and that Order hasn’t served Americans’ strategic interests since the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. Without the Americans riding herd on everyone, it is only a matter of time before something in East Asia or the Middle East or the Russian periphery (like, I don’t know, say, a war) breaks the global system beyond repair . . . assuming that the Americans don’t do it themselves.

...

A central factor in every growth story that accompanies industrialization is that much of the economic growth comes from a swelling population. What most people miss is that there's another step in the industrialization cumurbanization process: lower mortality increases the population to such a degree that it overwhelms any impact from a decline in birth rates . but only for a few decades. Eventually gains in longevity max out, leaving a country a greater population, but with few children. Yesterday's few children leads to today's few young workers leads to tomorrow's few mature workers. And now, at long last, tomorrow has arrived.

...

No matter how you crunch the numbers, China in 2022 is the fastest-aging society in human history.

...

The country's demographic contraction is now occurring just as quickly as its expansion, with complete demographic collapse certain to occur within a single generation. China is amazing, just not for the reasons most opine. The country will soon have traveled from preindustrial levels of wealth and health to postindustrial demographic collapse in a single human lifetime. With a few years to spare. Nor will China die alone. The time-staggered nature of the industrialization process-from Britain to Germany to Russia and northwestern Europe and Japan to Korea to Canada and Spain combined with the steadily accelerating nature of that process, means that much of the world's population faces mass retirements followed by population crashes at roughly the same time. The world's demographic structure passed the point of no return twenty to forty years ago. The 2020s are the decade when it all breaks apart.

For countries as varied as China, Russia, Japan, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Ukraine, Canada, Malaysia, Taiwan, Romania, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Austria, the question isn't when these countries will age into demographic obsolescence. All will see their worker cadres pass into mass retirement in the 2020s. None have sufficient young people to even pretend to regenerate their populations. All suffer from terminal demographics. The real questions are how and how soon do their societies crack apart? And do they deflate in silence or lash out against the dying of the light?

...

Economic development, quality of life, longevity, health, and demographic expansion are all subject to the whims of globalization. Or rather, in this case, deglobalization."

Trechos retirados de "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan.

O fim da globalização (parte I)

"Globalization brought development and industrialization to a wide swath of the planet for the first time, generating the mass consumption societies and the blizzard of trade and the juggernaut of technological progress we all find so familiar. And that reshaped global demographics. Mass development and industrialization extended life spans, while simultaneously encouraging urbanization. For decades that meant more and more workers and consumers, the people who give economies some serious go. One outcome among many was the fastest economic growth humanity has ever seen. Decades of it.

...

The American-led Order is giving way to Disorder. Global aging didn't stop once we reached that perfect moment of growth. Aging continued. It's still continuing. The global worker and consumer base is aging into mass retirement. In our rush to urbanize, no replacement generation was ever born.

Since 1945 the world has been the best it has ever been. The best it will ever be. Which is a poetic way of saying this era, this world-our world-is doomed. The 2020s will see a collapse of consumption and production and investment and trade almost everywhere. Globalization will shatter into pieces. Some regional. Some national. Some smaller. It will be costly. It will make life slower. And above all, worse. No economic system yet imagined can function in the sort of future we face.

...

The coming global Disorder and demographic collapse will do more than condemn a multitude of countries to the past; it will herald the rise of others."

"The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan.

Já lhe falaram? (parte II)

Parte I.

Interessante encontrar este exemplo dos dias de hoje, "Falta de stock, el mayor freno en la compra online para el 43% de los consumidores", relacioná-lo com este artigo do mês passado, "A “globalização” morreu. Viva a “blocalização!", com a possibilidade desta política por mais 5 anos, "Alarm in Beijing after announcement zero-Covid policy may last five years".

Com estas forças em movimento como é que nos podiam prometer nem há 1 mês que a inflação alta era transitória? Por que tivemos inflação baixa nas últimas décadas? Por causa da globalização. Se ela está a acabar ...

Entretanto, começo a ler "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan:

“Perhaps the oddest thing of our soon-to-be present is that while the Americans revel in their petty, internal squabbles, they will barely notice that elsewhere the world is ending!!! Lights will flicker and go dark. Famine’s leathery claws will dig deep and hold tight. Access to the inputs—financial and material and labor—that define the modern world will cease existing in sufficient quantity to make modernity possible. The story will be different everywhere, but the overarching theme will be unmistakable: the last seventy-five years long will be remembered as a golden age, and one that didn’t last nearly long enough at that.

The center point of this book is not simply about the depth and breadth of changes in store for every aspect of every economic sector that makes our world our world. It is not simply about history once again lurching forward. It is not simply about how our world ends. The real focus is to map out what everything looks like on the other side of this change in condition. What are the new parameters of the possible? In a world deglobalized, what are the new Geographies of Success?

What comes next?”

"há anos em que décadas acontecem"

Há uma citação atribuída a Lenin:

"Há décadas em que nada acontece, mas há semanas em que décadas acontecem"

A minha versão será:

"Há décadas em que nada acontece, mas há anos em que décadas acontecem" 

Por um lado o impacte das mudanças a nível dos consumidores: 

"During the pandemic, companies had to pivot quickly to meet new consumer demands

...

However, the pandemic was not the most dangerous time for big companies. 

Instead, today is the most fraught for established players, 

...

“Customer loyalty has changed. Customer buying habits have changed. Priorities have changed as well,” says Blank, 

...

With pandemic restrictions changing in the U.S., Blank says, consumer behavior is due to shift again. But how exactly? Well, he’s not so sure. Companies should prepare for many scenarios.

...

 This is a huge opportunity for all the chairs to be rearranged. Market leaders are vulnerable to new entrants. This is a great time to be a new entrant. This is a very dangerous time to be an existing market leader."

Por outro lado as alterações a nível da globalização: The changing nature of globalisation, o impacte da invasão da Ucrânia, a política do Covid zero:

O risco de voltar a trabalhar com a China (parte IV)

Parte III, Parte II e parte I.

"The invasion of Ukraine by Russia and sanctions imposed on it for doing so and new pandemic-related shutdowns in China are the latest events to rock global supply chains. Combined with the China-U.S. trade war and other pandemic- and climate-related disruptions, it is certain to accelerate the movement by Western companies to reduce their dependency on China for components and finished goods and on Russia for transportation and raw materials and to lead to more localized, or regional, sourcing strategies. If China decides to back Russia in the Ukraine conflict, it would only fuel that movement.

...

In 2019, just before the pandemic, China accounted for 28.7% of global manufacturing output while the United States accounted for 16.8%

In the last four years, however, the China-U.S. trade war and the supply chain disruptions generated by the pandemic and climate-related events have caused the pace of supply-chain localization to rise significantly. In fact, a January 2020 survey of 3,000 firms, motivated by the China-U.S. trade war, found that companies in a variety of industries — including semiconductors, autos, and medical equipment — had shifted, or planned to shift, at least part off their supply chains from current locations. Companies in about half of all global sectors in North America declared an intent to “reshore.”

...

The Ukraine war and closer alignment of China and Russia will modify profoundly the exchange of energy, raw materials, industrial parts, and goods between the Western world, China, and Russia and promise to accelerate the reshoring trend."

Trechos retirados de "How the War in Ukraine Is Further Disrupting Global Supply Chains"

O risco de voltar a trabalhar com a China (parte II)

Parte I. 

"In the long term, the economic effects will follow geopolitics. If the outcome is a deep and prolonged division between the west and a bloc centred on China and Russia, economic divisions will follow. Everybody would try to reduce their dependence on contentious and unreliable partners. Politics trumps economics in such a world. At a global level, the economy would be reconfigured. But in times of war, politics always trumps economics. We do not yet know how.

...

In this new world, the position of China will be a central concern. Its leadership needs to understand that supporting Russia is now incompatible with friendly relations with western countries. On the contrary, the latter will have to make strategic security an overriding imperative of their economic policy. If China decides to rely on a new axis of irredentist authoritarians against the west, global economic division must follow. Businesses have to take note of this."

Quais as consequências económicas para a reindustrialização da Europa? 

Trechos retirados de "Putin has reignited the conflict between tyranny and liberal democracy" 

O risco de voltar a trabalhar com a China

O risco de voltar a trabalhar com a China, mesmo num futuro sem covid, continua a aumentar.

— Carlos P da Cruz 🇺🇦 (@ccz1) February 28, 2022

Mesmo depois do Covid acabar e acabarem as intermináveis quarentenas para quem se desloca à China, quem pensar em voltar à China para encomendar produção terá de equacionar a possibilidade da China invadir Taiwan, e seguirem-se sanções como aconteceu agora com a Rússia.

O presente envenenado

Ontem, ao divulgar o postal "Emprego, preços e desglobalização" nas redes sociais acrescentei o comentário: "Um presente envenenado".

Esta figura descreve o que poderia ser um ciclo virtuoso que poderia elevar os padrões de vida em Portugal:

Com o aumento da desglobalização, aumenta a procura por produtos fabricados em Portugal, o que significa mais procura de mão de obra, o que significa mais emprego. Porque a mão de obra é escassa (demografia, salários, educação, escolaridade, emigração …) têm de se pagar melhores salários. Ora, produtos básicos não suportam de forma sustentável salários elevados. A competitividade baseada no custo não teria futuro. Assim, as empresas teriam de trabalhar o nuimerador da equação da produtividade. Num mundo anterior teríamos montadas as condições para uma eventual destruição criativa. As empresas incapazes de pagar melhores salários fechariam e o capital, o know-how, e as pessoas seriam empregues em actividades com maior valor acrescentado.

Além disto, podia-se fazer batota e aliciar capital, know-how e empreendedorismo externo a entrar e acelerar o ciclo virtuoso:

Contudo, no mundo actual, basta ver o discurso dos empresários têxteis ou este exemplo da Construção no jornal i de ontem:

"Sindicato diz que setor precisa de 80 mil trabalhadores e face à escassez da mão-de-obra há quem recorra a trabalhadores estrangeiros que chegam ao país através de redes ilegais.

Estes trabalhadores recebem metade do salário ou nem recebem nada."[Moi ici: E vocês perguntam e não é ilegal? Como é possível? É o modelo dos trabalhadores agrícolas de Odemira. Não esquecer as bofetadas!!!]

Assim, o que teremos será este ciclo, o presente envenenado:

Voltar a ser a china da Europa, como antes de haver China. Como tantas vezes repete Seth Godin, o pior que pode acontecer a quem está numa race to the bottom é ... ganhá-la.

Onde é que isto nos está a levar?

Primeiro foi a saída da China e o efeito do banhista gordo.

Agora o impacte do Covid-19 na resiliência das cadeias de fornecimento, "Covid-19 Factory Closures Prompt Some U.S. Businesses to Rethink Vietnam":

"Nike, which makes about half of its shoes in Vietnam, said last week it had lost 10 weeks of production there due to plant closures. Those 10 weeks translate to about 100 million pairs of unmanufactured Nike shoes, according to BTIG LLC, an American brokerage firm. Nike now expects demand for its products to exceed available supply over the next eight months.

“Our experience with Covid-related plant closures suggests that reopening and returning to full scale production will take time,” Matt Friend, chief financial officer of Nike, said last week.

...

A survey conducted at the end of August among nearly 100 representatives of companies in the manufacturing sector by the American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam found that a fifth had already transferred part of the production to other countries.

“What people realize, whether it’s China or Vietnam, or whatever, you can’t have all your eggs in one basket, you can’t be vulnerable to a country from a chain perspective. procurement, ”said Jonathan Moreno, head of the House manufacturing and supply chain task force.

...

Andrew Rees, CEO of Crocs Inc., the shoe company, said in mid-September that it was moving some production to other parts of the world. He said the company had already planned to migrate some of its production out of Vietnam and was adding facilities in Indonesia and India. “Continuous diversification is basically the name of the game,” he said."

Onde é que isto nos está a levar?

Que jogo de vasos comunicantes está a ser accionado?

 

Para reflexão

"The era of export is coming to an end. Instead of making and sending goods, it becomes a trend to send money and data to make and supply goods locally. It means that the world is ending in a world where labor is cheap and raw materials are cheap.

The world economy in the era of the so-called 'post-corona' as predicted by German business thinker Dr. Hermann Simon.

...

"The era of hyper-globalization, when exports amounted to twice the GDP (gross domestic product), is over, and we are now entering the era of de-globalization. “As local production increases through FDI (foreign direct investment), exports will decrease, and the restructuring of the global economy will accelerate accordingly,” he said.

...

“Companies have learned how easily global supply chains can collapse (due to a pandemic). An alternative is to set up a production base overseas where raw materials and parts can be directly supplied, and operate it through an independent local corporation. In other words, instead of investing in the country where the head office is located, we invest overseas where there are demand sources or raw materials. 

...

In the past, it was not easy to set up a high-tech factory abroad. However, advances in advanced technologies such as 5G (5th generation mobile communication) and 3D (3D printer) are making this possible. “It is now possible to send data in real time to make things (with 3D printers) in factories on the other side of the world. There is no longer any need for products to be moved between countries. This means that the global supply chain (GVC) can be reorganized to be the center of the data flow (rather than the flow of parts and raw materials).”

Dr. Simon said, "These days, quite a few CEOs (CEOs) say that it is 'like a miracle' when they see companies running well without business trips or face-to-face meetings." This experience is not just a surprise, but leads to a 'sympathy' between the business owners and professional managers that 'it is okay to give more autonomy to overseas branches and manpower'. “It doesn't matter where the headquarters is anymore. Now, the important thing for CEOs of global companies is to find a region that is optimized for 'the industry we are good at'."

Trechos retirados de "“The era of living on exports will end after Corona,” a world-class business scholar warns" 

Teorias da conspiração

"El coronavirus actúa como acelerador de cambios que ya estaban en marcha...”

Primeiro, recomendo a leitura deste postal de Julho de 2018, "Qual é a teoria da conspiração?" que termina assim:

"Qual é a teoria da conspiração?
.
10 anos depois do pico da globalização, 10 anos depois da maré ter mudado, 10 anos depois de se começar a falar em reindustrialização do Ocidente é que se inicia uma guerra de taxas alfandegárias? Quem é que tem a ganhar com isso?
.
As empresas que foram para a China mantiveram-se em jogo com base no preço/custo e nunca foram obrigadas, ou sentiram necessidade de um esforço de subida na escala de valor. Agora que o modelo baseado na China deixa de ser viável até para essas empresas grandes, elas percebem que não têm ADN competitivo para outra forma de competição. Por isso, sentem que precisam de tempo para arranjar uma alternativa. Nada que uma mão amiga no poder político não possa fazer: criar uma barreira alfandegária protectora."

Depois, "Coronavirus: China faces an economic reckoning as Covid-19 turns world against globalisation":

"One of the more worrying consequences of the coronavirus is that it looks likely to become a catalyst for deglobalisation.
.
At the centre of this will be the decoupling of the Chinese economy with developed economies and the US in particular. The world’s three largest free economies – the European Union, the United States and Japan – are all drawing up separate plans to lure their companies out of China.
...
US President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow has said the government should pay the costs of American firms moving manufacturing back from China onto US soil...
While these are recent moves, the truth is the debate on globalisation – and deglobalisation – began more than a decade ago in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008.
...
Exports of goods and services accounted for 19.51 per cent of China’s GDP last year, according to the World Bank. While that figure is declining, it is still sizeable. Based on this, a 10-percentage-point decline in China’s exports might mean a decline of about 2 percentage points in GDP growth on average.
.
Exports employ 180 million workers, so any hit to the sector would also have a knock-on effect on investment, incomes, consumption and employment."

Qual é a teoria da conspiração?

Ao ler "That Noise You Hear Is the Sound of Globalization Going Into Reverse" nasceu em mim uma teoria da conspiração.

Há muito neste blogue que se fala do refluxo da maré da globalização e da reindustrialização da Europa. Fenómeno que represento metaforicamente com uma imagem da Torre de Babel. Por exemplo:

• "Exige um pouco mais de sofisticação intelectual do que ir comprá-la simplesmente ao supermercado" (Dezembro de 2010)
• Pós pico da globalização... (Abril de 2011)
• A reindustrialização em curso (Dezembro de 2012)
• Passamos ao nível seguinte do jogo? (Fevereiro de 2015)
• Globalização, uma maré a recuar (Abril de 2015)
• "o impacte da "reversão" da maré da globalização" (Setembro de 2016)
• Turn, turn, turn (Novembro de 2016)
• "Estou otimista ... é fantástico." (Novembro de 2016) [onde escrevi: BTW, tenho uma teoria da conspiração acerca da globalização. A globalização está a recuar, não por causa de barreiras alfandegárias mas por causa de coisas que falo aqui no blogue: rapidez, flexibilidade, interacção, co-criação, salários na China, Evangelho do valor, ... Quem perde com o retrocesso da globalização? As empresas grandes, as marcas grandes (ver o marcador hollowing), quando os Trumps da direita e da esquerda agora vêm falar dos perigos da globalização desconfio que andam a tramar algo para impedir a hemorragia das empresas grandes nem que para isso tenham de tramar as PME deste mundo.]
• Em curso o fim da globalização (Maio de 2017)

E nunca esquecer uma especulação feita aqui em Agosto de 2008.

Qual é a teoria da conspiração?

10 anos depois do pico da globalização, 10 anos depois da maré ter mudado, 10 anos depois de se começar a falar em reindustrialização do Ocidente é que se inicia uma guerra de taxas alfandegárias? Quem é que tem a ganhar com isso?

As empresas que foram para a China mantiveram-se em jogo com base no preço/custo e nunca foram obrigadas, ou sentiram necessidade de um esforço de subida na escala de valor. Agora que o modelo baseado na China deixa de ser viável até para essas empresas grandes, elas percebem que não têm ADN competitivo para outra forma de competição. Por isso, sentem que precisam de tempo para arranjar uma alternativa. Nada que uma mão amiga no poder político não possa fazer: criar uma barreira alfandegária protectora.

Quem serão os principais prejudicados? 

Os consumidores e ... as empresas que nunca embarcaram na produção na China e, por isso, tiveram de se adaptar ao mundo competitivo tendo em conta outros factores que não o preço.

BTW, o título do Wall Street Journal é um bom sinal da cegueira em que o mainstream financeiro vive face à economia real. Até parece que a globalização só agora vai ser revertida. Come on!

Acerca da globalização

"According to Mr. Ghemawat, a globalization strategy should be based on three interrelated options: adaptation, aggregation, and arbitrage.
.
Adaptation means responding to differences among countries by tailoring products and services to suit local tastes and needs. However, each such local variation adds costs and complexity, thus reducing the benefits of aggregation and economies of scale. Smart adaptation requires limiting the amount of local variations as well as finding the most efficient ways of introducing such variations. [Moi ici: Conversa para entreter Golias... presos entre a espada e a parede. Por um lado a eficiência, o querer aproveitar a vantagem da escala, por outro a incapacidade de servir todas as tribos] Platforms offer a good way forward, offering the aggregation benefits of a common platform foundation, while each country or region can develop its own ecosystem of platform partners, whose product and services are adapted to local requirements.
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Aggregation is used to deliver economics of scale and scope by expanding operations across national borders. Aggregation drives efficiencies and productivity and is one of the most common justification for having a global R&D, manufacturing and logistics strategy. “Those advantages normally have to be pretty large in order to overcome the home court advantage of local competitors… Companies that have operations in markets where they’re only marginally successful, on the other hand, may need to retrench.”
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Arbitrage leverages economic differences between national and regional markets, such as labor costs and tax incentives. Arbitrage opportunities have somewhat narrowed in recent years, given the rising prosperity of several emerging markets.
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Companies should consider regional strategies, as a reasonable compromise between a one-size-fits-all global strategy that ignores local differences, and an inefficient and costly highly localized strategy. Such strategies would allow them to take advantage of similarities between neighboring countries in the same region.  “An analysis of 29 distance variables shows that in almost all cases countries from the same region average higher similarity scores than countries from different regions – and often by very wide margins.” Another pragmatic variant is to localize the customer-facing, front end parts of the strategy, while centralizing the back-end platforms that support R&D, production and other operational functions.[Moi ici: Golias a avançarem para plataformas de produção por grandes regiões económicas]
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The article points out that “the backlash against globalization is also, in part, a backlash against big business.
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What went wrong? Part of the problem is that global firms have generally responded to this challenging economic environment by focusing primarily on reducing their overall operational costs. Despite dramatic advances in technology, companies have mostly ignored the opportunities to pursue growth through innovative new products and markets."

Trechos retirados de "The True State of Globalization: Not Dead, Not Completely OK"

Ver também "Globalization in the Age of Trump"

Decisões de localização (parte I)

Quando aproveitava as férias escolares para, de mochila às costas, viajar pelo interior desértico de Portugal em busca de águias, falcões e abutres, tinha oportunidade de ver coisas que não se apanham quando se circula de automóvel com atenção à estrada.

Por exemplo, nesta estrada onde em 1984 dançava o can-can:

(Estrada entre Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo e Barca D'Alva)

Recordo o esqueleto antigo de uma unidade industrial junto a uma ribeira seca no Verão.

É fácil pensar num Portugal distante onde a rede de estradas era fraca e regional. Nesse Portugal a indústria podia surgir em qualquer lugar e viver do mercado regional. Depois, surgiu o comboio e a camioneta e a rede de estradas melhorou. Então, as empresas localizadas em mercados maiores, como junto das capitais de distrito, começaram a crescer e a aproveitar as vantagens da competição no século XX:

Não deixa de ter a sua ironia ácida, associar a cada choraminga de autarca do interior nos anos 80 e 90 do século passado, melhores estradas para o interior, melhor acesso do litoral ao interior, melhor acesso das empresas do litoral com custos mais competitivos, porque maiores, incapacidade das empresas do interior competirem pelo preço, encerramento das empresas do interior, desaparecimento de postos de trabalho no interior, aumento do êxodo humano do interior para o litoral e para a emigração.

Podemos subir na escala de abstracção e passar do nível interno para o domínio do internacional.

Com a adesão de Portugal à EFTA primeiro e à CEE depois, o país começou a receber muito investimento directo estrangeiro para a indústria, por causa dos baixos da sua mão de obra e relativa proximidade dos mercados de consumo no centro da Europa. E chegámos aos gloriosos anos em que a taxa de desemprego em Portugal rondava os 3%. Éramos a china da Europa antes de haver China.

Depois, as Texas Instruments na Maia e as Seagate na margem sul deram o sinal, e as empresas de capital estrangeiro pelas mesmas razões que tinham escolhido Portugal, escolhiam agora a Ásia e começou a debandada para a China. As lojas dos 300 deram o outro sinal, muita produção nacional habituada a trabalhar para o mercado interno com base no preço começou a ser dizimada pelas importações baratas da Ásia. No domínio da economia transaccionável só sobreviveu quem de certa forma conseguiu algum tipo de diferenciação (rapidez, inovação, flexibilidade, moda, design, autenticidade, qualidade, experiência, proximidade, ...).

Agora a onda está a virar outra vez e falamos e escrevemos sobre o reshoring, sobre a importância da proximidade entre a produção e o consumo para tirar partido da interacção que permite a co-criação, a personalização, a customização.

Nesta nova etapa do comércio mundial quais podem ser as principais decisões de localização?

Continua.

Em curso o fim da globalização

Outro sintoma do refluxo da globalização, do reshoring, do fim da China como fábrica do mundo, do advento de Mongo e do aumento da importância da proximidade, da co-criação, da interacção, da preferência, "Eurozone Manufacturing Adds Jobs at Fastest Pace in 20 Years":

"The eurozone’s economic recovery maintained its recent, stronger momentum in May as the currency area’s manufacturing sector added jobs at the fastest pace in 20 years while German businesses were more optimistic than at any time since 1991."

Acerca de Mongo (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.

"Markets most likely to be disrupted first have small production volumes per variant, high product variety requiring a large number of parts, high demand for customization and individualized products, and a particular need for local production and fast lead times.
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In the near future, AM may not lead to lower unit costs in comparison with a traditional plant operating at the minimum efficient scale of mass manufacturing, but the total costs of serving customers through AM may already be lower in some industries compared with TM methods.
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Transportation is another sector that will be disrupted. Whereas today the Suez and Panama canals are being expanded to accommodate the global trade in goods, the changes in the location of production as well as the structures of supply chains will transform this industry beyond recognition. As noted earlier, transportation needs will shift from components to raw materials, and finished products will require transportation over much shorter distances (print shop to home) than before (global manufacturing site to retail outlet). It would be prudent for companies in the business of container shipping of components and finished products to explore right now how to invest in AM to hedge their business (as UPS did).
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Industries in market segments that offer high volume demand of very standardized products without much uncertainty or variability may be shielded the longest from the disruptive effects of AM."

Recordar:

pergunta honesta sobre https://t.co/OJwIMbEGc0 o q muda acerca de Sines com o fim da China como a fábrica do mundo?

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) February 16, 2016

O rastilho apagou-se... cuidado com Sines https://t.co/H9LMVQHVz5

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) September 3, 2016

O que os números das exportações me sugerem

Ontem, neste postal escrevi:

"Cortiça com recorde histórico de exportações quer chegar aos mil milhões de euros em 2017;
Exportações da cerâmica disparam em seis anos e 2016 pode trazer recorde;
Vai ser mais um ano recorde para as exportações de calçado;
Vai ser mais um ano recorde para as exportações têxteis;
Vai ser mais um ano recorde para as exportações de máquinas (crescimento de dois dígitos mais de 12,3%);
Vai ser mais um ano recorde para as exportações de mobiliário;
Vai ser um ano recorde para as exportações da agro-indústria (só o leite e lactícinios não sobem);
Vai ser um ano recorde ... estão a ver o filme"

Depois, ainda acrescentei:

"A Autoridade Nacional do Medicamento (Infarmed) destaca que os números revelados pelo Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE) confirmam dinamismo do sector farmacêutico que triplicou, em dez anos, o valor das exportações que já superam 900 milhões."

Depois, durante o dia, pensei para comigo:
-Achas isto normal? O que seria um comportamento normal da economia transaccionável tradicional (excluindo multinacionais, consideremos só o universo das empresas que o lisboeta típico considera unsexy e chefiadas com mão de ferro por um patrão com a 4ª classe)?

O normal seria ter uns sectores a bombar e outros a penar.

Por que é que tantos e tantos sectores transaccionáveis estão a bater recordes?

E o que me veio à cabeça foi:

• será que estamos a ser puxados por uma locomotiva externa como eu dizia que não aconteceria (em Novembro de 2006)?
• será que isto são os sintomas da boleia de uma maré muito maior? Em Dezembro de 2009 escrevi "Não acredito em marés..."

Com a adesão da China à OMC milhares de empresas bem e mal geridas foram varridas do mapa porque o modelo de negócio em que se baseavam simplesmente deixou de funcionar e isso é meta-gestão, ultrapassa a gestão corrente da maioria das empresas e, implica uma agilidade estratégica que não é para o humano comum e se calhar incompatível com a nossa moldura legal laboral e social.

Com a reversão da globalização, não por causa de Trump mas por causa do que está por trás deste postal de Agosto de 2008 e cito-me:

"perante este cenário deixaria de fazer sentido falar da China como a fábrica do mundo."

Se calhar o desempenho do sector transaccionável português em 2016 é a melhor evidência do fenómeno de reshoring de que tanto falamos e escrevemos aqui pelo menos desde Maio de 2006 com "O regresso dos clientes"

Acredito que a gestão de uma empresa deve continuar a seguir esta mensagem de Janeiro de 2007: Não se fiem na Virgem e corram, não se fiquem pelas orações REMEM! também.

Uma coisa é fazer pela vida, locus de controlo interno no seu melhor, e não contar com boleias externas. Outra coisa é perceber que se calhar, além do que temos de fazer dentro da nossa empresa, o mundo exterior está menos mau e há toda uma panóplia de oportunidades que estão a aparecer porque o modelo chinês está a acabar. Como pode a minha empresa aproveitar esta oportunidade? Que riscos podem vir à boleia desta oportunidade?