Comment by jollybean | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jollybean | Hacker News Reader

Folks - this is what we are outsourcing and externalizing.

When foreign entities are able to bid for a lot less, and pay a lot less, a lot of it has to do with the fact that they will not bother with 'end of life' for ships, or getting insurance, or worrying about the lives of people who are 'expendable'.

Those very nice buildings in Dubai come from some nasty labour practices.

If every piece of this puzzle from end-to-end were to have happened in a 'rich country' there'd be legal issues, PR/media, litigation, and a separate kind of bureaucracy altogether, meaning the 'alternative' for a lot of corporations is just 'wash their hands' of it, pay 1/2 the price, and get all the ugly parts 'off the books'.

We are to the point now where we have ample material surplus - we don't need any more 'plastic stuff from China' - it'd be worthwhile to start integrating a lot of 'off the books' stuff into trade deals. Ironically, it would be good for 'them' as well, because in chaotic, quasi-lawless systems it doesn't make sense for participants to invest in anything further ahead than what is in front of their noses (i.e. don't hate the Lebanese shippers for doing the only thing they can do to remain profitable, i.e. don't hate the player, hate the game) ... forcing some degree of transparency and accountability in these systems might raise prices a little bit, but the benefits would likely be immensely positive in the system overall.

It's nice that the story is made personal, about a real individual (think: that Tom Hanks film about someone stuck in international airport limbo) but that's not really the story here is it.

The fault here is ultimately with egypt. They were not letting him leave, they took his passport and not even letting him get 'deported' back to his home country.

This is not from outsourcing, this is Kafkaesque bureaucracy created by Egypt itself.

It seems like the court basically enslaved him.

That's how contempt of court rules generally work in common-law countries, even in the west.

Egypt definitely has fault here, but the company that owns the ship could have gotten the ship out of there if they cared about him at all. Yes, it might have been expensive, but I would expect a US based company to have rescued him within weeks of this situation starting, not years.

The article says the parent company is in financial difficulties, and the individual in question was basically being held for ransom (along with the ship). Depending on the ordering of debts (for the company), they may not have been able to compensate the Egyptians.

All of that being said, I agree an American company likely would have had this sorted out faster, because the USA tends to deal with bankruptcies and the like very quickly.

Seems to me that corporations owning ships having financial difficulties would be a natural consequence of outsourcing behaviour. You want to outsource risk and responsibilities. So the big companies get rid of their ships and hire small companies on the edge of profitability.

I assume it's not always the most sound way to do business but some should get away with it.

Name me a country where logistics orgs never run out of money or resources.

The United Federation of Planets doesn’t even use money, and it’s post-scarcity so they don’t run out of resources.

Ships, planets, space, etc. are scarce and owned by various actors. The Federation is an interplanetary government made of sovereign member states, many of which do trade and use money. Even without the use of trade, there must be systems for determining who controls what.

This discussion makes me wish that I had borrowed the book Trekonomics from my friend when he offered to loan it to me. - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trekonomics

replicators tho. makes a huge difference.

we're headed away from UFP and more towards DOOP.

They run out of resources all the time and it drives many plots!

I had a feeling someone was eventually going to pull this one out. :)

fictitious evidence isn't.

> The United Federation of Planets doesn’t even use money

Well, they occasionally say they don’t (and Roddenberry said they don’t), but they actually do (or discussing the fact that they do) in every single one of the series, and several of the movies.

> and it’s post-scarcity so they don’t run out of resources.

They do run into resource limits.

Also, the UFP is, you known, fiction, and not even haed science fiction (or even particularly internally consistent fiction.)

Let's invert that.

Let's assume that logistics organisations consistently run out of resources. That this is a probabalistic outcome of operations. The BBC article even gives us a sense of the baseline risk, about 250 cases presently, and 85 new ones reported in 2020 (meaning that typical durations exceed a year in length).

In that case, how do you address the inevitable circumstance without creating a human rights abuse crisis, presuming sufficient consideration and political will exists for this to occur?

Elsewhere in the thread, surity bonds are mentioned. That is, a ship on entering a port or other navigational / marine facility, places a bond in which some large and far more solvent entity assures that compensation where due is paid.

International treaties (to which major transit points such as canals might be obligated to join) are another option.

An international response organisation with the ability to both intervene and impose additional sanctions on any entities which impose such sailor-arrest.

Keep in mind that the 2020 Beruit ANFO explosion occurred after a not-dissimilar situation, in which a ship was deemed unseaworthy and its cargo seized and held under exceptionally (and ultimately massively fatal and damaging) conditions, in part because its ownership and questions over compensation were not met.

(There were quite admittedly other concerns and failures, including by the Beruit port authority and judiciary, but the ownership and payment aspects touched on most of these. Hazardous cargo and storage have been at the heart of several other recent major disasters, including in Tianjin, China.)

Whilst "flag of convenience" regulations make race-to-the-bottom standards in shipping regulation common, obligations to maintain surity bonds or similar instruments of substantial duration (e.g., a year or more) to access major ports, canals, fueling depots, and the like, could help ensure compliance.

How? I mean there are shady American transport firms.

This isn’t the result of big massive conglomerates. It’s mom and pop small firms.

People to small and broke to sue.

mv aman is a 100m ship. any company owning that is kinda stretching the term "mom and pop".

The mom and pops are the puppets of large companies. Large companies transfer risk and plausible deniability to small companies all the time.

What’s the option if you don’t outsource? Every company who wants to ship something by sea needs to purchase and boat and man a crew?

Most of these ships are owned by single vessel companies, much like power plants. This allows the massive shipping companies to walk away from individual vessels.

> are owned by single vessel companies

This legal fiction is only true as long as it is allowed to be. Egypt can see who was operating and using the ship and block their other ships until they fix the issue - they don't need to hold a scapegoat hostage for years.

There is also back channeling. I also believe that if the shipping company and the sailor were from a different country (not necessarily the US but not failed states either), he would have gone home a long time ago.

Depends on what company. One headed by people like Ross Perot ( RIP ) definitely will. The other that runs private jail would most likely let people expire if it makes them extra dollar.

It reminds me of the court case that was controversial when Gorsuch was confirmed involving a trucker - "TransAm Trucking v. Dept. of Labour" in particular. It's another case where company property is valued over individuals lives - the case itself hinged on the fact that the employee was free to leave the site on foot but that it was illegal for him to use the tractor half of the truck owned by the employer to reach safety without authorization from the employer. Essentially the ruling of that case leads to the learned lesson that all truck drivers should strap private motorcycles to the sides of their trucks - doing otherwise is irresponsible.

in case anyone else wants to know the details of this case:

https://blogs.illinois.edu/view/25/477996

Am I misunderstanding something? The courts ruled in the truckers favor. Besides, I'm not sure a motorcycle would have saved him from the extreme cold.

I must be reading it backwards, but wasn't the order eventually upheld that the employee be reinstated? Gorsuch dissented, but he wasn't the one making the ruling. At least thats what the article I just read on it said, but I could be wrong -- it's early in the morning and I only just had my coffee!

> TransAm appealed, but in a 2-to-1 decision, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the Board’s reinstatement order (TransAm Trucking v. Department of Labor, 2016). Judge Neil Gorsuch dissented.

https://blogs.illinois.edu/view/25/477996

Given the excessive "compensation" demand that Egypt is making for the ship that blocked the canal, I'm going to assume the fault lies with Egypt.

Let's get more specific. What is reasonable compensation that should Egypt demand?

The canal was blocked for 6 days and revenue is $15 million per day, so that's $90 million. But many of the ships that were held up eventually transited anyway, so $90 million is an absolute upper bound. Then there is the cost of the operation to free the ship, which I don't know. But Egypt is asking for $1 billion, so the rescue operation would have had to cost at minimum $900 million for the price to be justified. And I know it didn't cost $900 million, because if split evenly over 6 days that would be $150 million per day, which would be > 50% of Egypt's entire government spending over the time period. So I can say with confidence that the rescue was at least an order of magnitude less than that, so another $90 million (and that's still a massive over estimate).

So absolute upper bound for losses is $180 million. If I were making odds I would guess that only 1/3 of the ships diverted around Africa, so $30 million, and that the rescue cost another $15 million, so over/under $45 million.

And that's without even bringing up that there was a canal pilot on the ship at the time who may share some portion of the responsibility for the accident. So, yeah, it's extortion.

Egypt is likely using treble damages in their calculation.

A pilot from the canal was on board, how is it not their fault? (Zero compensation)

I don't know the rules of the canal, but I highly doubt this scenario. The Egyptian gov't basically has a monopoly and can charge anything they want and write any rules they want. Of course, ships are free to circumvent Africa (around the Cape of Good Hope) if they disagree.

More likely: Ships are required by rules to have an Egyptian pilot on-board during the passage, and there is limited legal liability for ordinary operating circumstances. That said, if an Egyptian pilot was found grossly negligent of their duties, then they would be liable. However, in most legal systems, this is an exceptionally high bar. And, I assume if you pass the canal, you subject yourself to the Egyptian court system. (Read about the big cruise ship that ran aground in Italy. That story reads like text book gross negligence!)

The pilot is supposed to steer the ship, but the captain is ultimately responsible for it.

Per the Suez Canal Authority - Rules of Navigation Article 4, section 7 (page 7):

“(7) Owners, mobilizers, charterers and/or operators bind themselves responsible for any mistakes resulting from pilot’s advice or arrise by SCA personnel.”

https://www.suezcanal.gov.eg/English/Navigation/Pages/Ruleso...

No, the ship owner abandoned their ship and Egypt wants the trashing to be paid. That's not their fault. The methods to get there are not ideal but given the matroshka method of hiding responsibility I don't see what else they could have done.

the article says it's a middle eastern company that owns the ship: Tylos Shipping and Marine Service

Egypt is using the violation of human rights as extortion here. I’m sorry, I’m this is in no way the fault of the shippers. A fair discussion is two entities sitting at the table and negotiating. Not two sitting at the table with one being cruel to the other that the other might care about. That’s pure extortion.

If a ship were straight-up captured by pirates and the crew held for ransom, I would still expect the company that sent the crew out to do everything in its power to bring them home. If said company simply shrugged and said "we tried to come up with the ransom money, but couldn't", I would consider that behavior unethical.

The same applies here: yes, Egypt is corrupt. Yes, this is a massive violation of human rights. But the company took on a moral responsibility when it sent out that crew. We can't excuse someone from their ethical duty simply because other people neglect theirs. Ethics is meaningless if it stops applying as soon as there's corruption outside.

There’s a time honored solution for this - bond. You’re not allowed in port until you post a bond that would cover whatever - crew repatriation, port fees, whatever. This could be formalized, eg through a holding company (Lloyds?) that the port could verify the bond with, etc. I don’t have any knowledge of the shipping industry but from hearing this and other stories it sounds like a cluster f*k.

That makes sense. If I want somebody to change my locks or cut down a tree at my house, they need to post a bond first.

Plus the United States probably would have sent a diplomat as soon as the press found out what was happening.

They didn't have money they were *allowed* to spend. The problem lies with the courts who were more interested in protecting the creditors than the crew.

> Mohammed, they said, should never have signed the order in the first place.

I wonder what would have happened if he refused to sign

I am not certain but from my expierence, it would most likely consist of detention, fear, and likely some torture; to say nothing of the torture it is to take someone's passport and trap them onboard a ship for 4 years.

The other crew left and presumably the captain after this guy signed to stay and be the custodian, there is nothing to indicate in the article he of all the crew was singled out (from memory)

Obviously it doesn’t change the tragic situation, had he not signed up as custodian we’d be reading an article about a ship captain stuck on a ship Not to victim blame there is a difference between someone stole x thousands from my home vs I lost x thousands investing in an ostrich farm Both are sad, but ...

Whether or not he signed a form making him custodian is irrelavent. The matter of the fact is, nobody - custodian or not - should be forced to live on a ship against there will and/or have their passport taken/be detained for years for anything not a criminal offense [and in this case ultimately not their responsability, but even if so].

Someone is always going to bear responsibility. This is why, when you are incorporating an off-shore company, you need some kind of "representative" in the country itself. These people might be making "free" money but if things turn sour they might find themselves in trouble.

The court did not do some random detention (they did let the rest of the crew) but they declared him the responsible party. In that case, he did break the Egyptian law.

If you are getting a job where you bear a certain responsibility, you have to make sure that the company is not breaking the law through you. You'll be responsible, and worse, if the company is headquartered overseas, you might bear the whole responsibility.

You wrote: <<This is why, when you are incorporating an off-shore company, you need some kind of "representative" in the country itself.>> Absolutely not. All kinds of shell corporations are setup with nothing more than a letterbox. Look at the Carribean (incl. Bermuda), Gibraltar, Isle of Man, Langkawi, Singapore, Hongkong (the list goes on and on!). Literally, they have huge numbers of off-shore corporations registered with no one on-shore.

In places with stronger regulation and rule of law, these letterbox shell corporations are not allowed or strictly regulated.

> Someone is always going to bear responsibility.

"Powerful people demand that there is always some scapegoat who they can abuse, even if they aren't at fault and it doesn't really help make things better."

Blood for the blood god, I suppose!

You can find examples of such bad behavior in pretty much every state; it's by no means unique to Egypt.

I disagree, ultimately, we the consumers are at fault. We buy the cheapest products (or the flashiest: see Apple) and these are the consequences. Companies have to save costs to compete because we won't agree to pay more. We won't vote for politicians that make everybody's life better: we will vote for politicians who promises that "the other guys" are going to suffer and that "you or your group" is going to have an easy life.

Somewhere down the line, yeah, Egypt is to blame, but we are the source of the problem - we are to blame. If you want these kind of things to decrease, try to buy local products, try to buy second hand, try to vote for the benefit of everybody (not just you or your group), try to pollute less, try to be conscious about the effects of your actions, and be less egoistic.

You are Nongqawuse :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nongqawuse

You are Ken M :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_M

You mean I'm amagogotya :P

> I disagree, ultimately, we the consumers are at fault.

Nope. This is a lie fabricated by big corporations so that they don't seem responsible.

People have limited money and time. Just because you buy a more expensive product does not mean it is produced more ethically.

If two companies are selling their product for the same price then the one using non ethical behavior to lower production cost will still make more profit. It has a competitive advantage and will take over the market. Increasing the base price because you as a consumer are willing to pay more does not help the situation.

Some companies advertise with certain labels that imply that they are more ethical. One example of this is called green washing. Most of the time it is an advertisement stunt and does not improve the situation.

The research necessary to ensure the product you buy is ethically produced is way above the scope for an average consumer having a job and other obligations to do.

> We won't vote for politicians that make everybody's life better

Lobbyists have way more power over politicians than the common man trying to vote for the smaller evil.

Only if they are organized do they have a voice. For this they need to first understand that blaming consumers is a lie and that the industry needs to be regulated.

The article states there are more than 250 of these cases all throughout the world, it's nothing to do with 'bureaucracy' or Egypt.

I wonder if sailors can get two passports for this reason (I know in my country you can get two if you plan on visiting both Israel and some other country that's hostile towards Israel).

Not that it would help much, because you'd have to phisically escape anyway.

Less outsourcing means being less beholden to Egypt, too.

Do you really think that same event would have happened to an American?

Read a story of a ship's captain, stuck on the ship at anchor in New Jersey.

There is a mariner's charity in Greater New York that would help out. They would post a bond with ICE and drive the sailor to an airport or another ship.

Well, whether 9/11 security or what, they weren't allowed to do this. So the captain had been on the ship for over a year.

So, yes, it can happen here.

Sounds interesting. Got a link?

It happens fairly frequently. The owner runs into financial difficulty and the creditors seize the ship. The crew can't leave because they aren't allowed to abandon it, as well as not having a visa to enter the US to get to the airport, nor the money for airfare home.

The locals usually donate food & supplies to the crew.

https://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/story/how-a-charleston-p...

I'm slightly confused, if the owner can't afford to deal with the costs, they obviously dont have the financial ability to penalize the individual NOT to abandon ship.

That level of cognitive disconnect surely can't be held up as valid in any legal system that has greater cognitive ability to do 'connect the dots drawings'.

That story is probably due to coronavirus travel restrictions, given it is from last May.

I would imagine it is illegal to abandon a ship in port

Illegal for whom? Surely it's illegal for the owner, or perhaps the captain at most, but not the crew?

There's a couple of reasons why the crew and officers don't just leave. One is that their employment record will show that they left their ship while their contract was still in force, which given that jobs in the industry are highly desirable will make them unemployable.

And the other is that the port authority wants the ship gone, and not vandalized or becoming a hazard to navigation. So they will require someone to stay on board to maintain it and keep it secure. Which can include getting Immigration to forbid the crew entrance to the country. While they are in port, it's much like being in the secure area of an airport - they're in a gray area and aren't actually in any country. So when that happens, it is illegal for them to leave it.

This was in print and almost 20 years ago, so unfortunately not.

Err here in the United States you have people pissing in bottles and bags because they can't take a break without missing targets. The West is not immune to predatory hiring and employment practices.

I have pissed in a bottle before out of expediency, but I've never spent several years stranded on a ship without power, company, etc, out of free will. Conflating the two seems weird.

Do you piss in a bottle on a daily basis as part of your job? Comparing peeing in a bottle [a few times in your life] for expediency compared to doing it on the daily, seems to be its own conflation.

If my current workplace offered me a 15% raise in exchange for forgoing toilet breaks and pissing in a bottle for the next year, I would go for it.

I'm sure there's a number for which I'd agree to be stranded on a boat off the coast of Egypt without power, but I suspect it's closer to 15x my salary.

As I understand it, this makes the latter 100x worse than the former.

No, you'd need to compare the actual job that requires you to piss in a bottle, along with its salary, not your current job with a 15% bonus tacked on.

Also people don't sign up to be abandoned on a ship, they're not told of that possibility, until it happens. They signed up to be merchant marines or seaman, not prisoners of ghost ships.

Just because you find getting bit by a dog more palatable than falling into a pit of snakes, doesn't make getting bit by a dog okay or acceptable.

Private investigators have to do this routinely. Of course they are probably self-employed.

OSHA laws require companies allow bathroom breaks though.

I piss in bottles and on the sides of roads on road trips. Sometimes daily, depending on the length of the trip. You make it sound like some great injustice. It's just pissing in a bottle, who cares?

It's pretty offensive to compare this to being held prisoner on a ship.

Doing something freely of choice with no (or very mimial) downside risk, and doing it at the penalty of losing ones jobs, whilst the employer denies the practice, have substantial daylight between them.

I can only assume you have some very deep seated issues around urine and urination? With a totally straight face, you're comparing pissing in bottles with being imprisoned for four years. Amazon could demand full bottles at close of workday, and then pour it on your head, and this comparison would still be farcical. Recalibrate your outrage.

I'm going to blow your mind: RV toilets are just giant bottles with levers and valves.

I am comparing the case of urinating on a roadtrip as a means to save a few minutes on arrival time, with a significant labour force being obligated to do so under terms and conditions of employment whilst their employer loudly and publicly denies this fact. (The fact that the employer later retracted the denail doesn't obviate the predicate clause.)

Your reading of my statement is far from the mark, curiously so.

Please start peeing in bottles daily as part of your job, and let your co-workers know about, note their reaction. This discussion is about unacceptable work hazards, not exclusively about being imprisoned on a ship.

It seems fairly easy to get a union if a workplace wants one...

Right, ask Amazon workers about that.

The warehouse workers down in Alabama? Why would you ask them? They didn't want one. It wasn't close at all, either.

Because Amazon moving killed all other local work opportunities, and also because Amazon did not allow workers access to union organizers and information. The case is probably going to go the NRLB which will rule the election illegal.

It wasn't a close thing. It was a blowout, substantially worse than 2-to-1 against. (1,798—738).

Maybe you're right, and there will be lawsuits. That's a far cry from saying that the workers there wanted a union.

That's my point. They did ask them, and they said no.

Ever been enslaved on a Thai fishing boat? I know a few people who have, including a neighbor that was missing for 3 years. The US has its own problems, but places like Dubai, Southeast Asia, etc. have a much more severe problem with mistreatment and abuse of workers.

Last year a building collapsed here during construction and killed about 60 people. Stuff like that happens all the time.

I lived in Gulf countries for 12 years; I'm well aware of the shitty and life-threatening work conditions for migrant labourers.

I've also lived in the US for 9 years; I'm also well aware of the mistreatment of workers here, such as workers who are undocumented migrants, workers who are prisoners, workers who work gig companies, Amazon workers, and many others.

The common theme here is humans are excellent at externalizing costs.

Jeff bezos is not pissing in a bottle. The people who profit the most from these ships are never trapped on them.

Normally I don’t engage in these kind of false comparisons and I do know that south east asia has a problem with off shore industrial slavery unprecedented in the USA. Sometimes things are uniquely bad in other parts of the world and there is no domestic comparison. That is certainly the case with the enslaved fishing vessels (although a case can be made about EU/EFTA operated fishing vessels out of Western Sahara and Mauritania).

But now I’m gonna make an exception and point to the Hard Rock building collapse in New Orleans in 2019 which killed 3 workers and injured dozens more[1]. Things like that happen all the time in the US as well.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1031_Canal#Partial_collapse_du...

That Hard Rock building collapse did not seem to be something that happens all the time in the US. That thing got tons of news coverage because it is rare. It definitely happens, but not on the scale of many of the countries it is being compared to in this thread.

Nasty labour practices... It's just slavery. This poor gentleman was forced into slavery.

You're right that this is what we're outsourcing. All of the corporate trade agreements - American manufacturing was shipped overseas, and American labor forced to compete with what is often a modern form of slave labor.

And it was forced to slavery by the same people who took that job out of seas. Greed has no bottom.

Yeah but just think of the value being created for shareholders and consumers! /s

And remember, the company only has a duty to its shareholders to be more greedy!

Exactly. What you need are systems architected in such a way to stop greed and its nasty effects.

American manufacturing was shipped overseas because, i.e. after, American labor was unable to compete. I'm not sure what "corporate trade agreements" means either; corporations don't make "trade agreements".

I'm also not sure why everyone takes for granted that America not having as many manufacturing jobs is a bad thing...

You mean paid labor couldn’t compete on price with slaves? Color me shocked.

Yes, but also the standard of living in the US that American labor can't really compete on price with anyone.

Manufacturing is like a ladder. When you outsource the bottom, it’s no different than cutting the rungs of a ladder beneath you. Manufacturing is essential to the wealth and prosperity of any nation.

Source? Reasoning? No? So we're back where we started, thanks.

The Source is WW1 and WW2. Germany was the world powerhouse in production not population. Their ability to out manufacture their neighboring countries lead to some pretty horrible things.

Words have meaning, and the meaning of "slavery" is not "a bad situation". Slavery is alive and well in the world, but this story has nothing to do with it.

They appointed him as a forced custodian and imprisoned him on a boat for 4 years by way of forcing him to be its guardian. That is slavery. Could he quit? Did he have any rights or freedoms while in his situation?

If you call indentured servitude slavery, you're not helping - it just lessens the dynamic range of language.

It sure doesn't help actual slaves.

> If you call indentured servitude slavery

You’re being perfectly accurate; indentured servitude is consistent with both historical understandings of slavery and modern legal definitions; it was certainly distinct from the particular form of chattel slavery that was popular for a few hundred years and fell out of fashion in thr 19th century, and it is useful to be able to distinguish them since they overlapped in time and space, but that particular form of slavery was not the historically dominant form, itself, and it doesn’t make sense to narrow the definition to that particular form.

While, certainly, that form of chattel slavery was the most immediate concern for, say, American abolitionists, I think they would see it as badly missing the point and not actually abolishing slavery if indentured servitude had been restored to replace chattel slavery.

Yup, not the dominant form.

However I found a curious tidbit the other day; the 1619 ship had indentured servants not slaves. Not to belittle their plight, as they were de facto slaves as soon as they got on the ship.

American abolitionists very much understood that chattel slavery wasn't the only form of slavery. The text of the 13th amendment indicates as much.

Ultimately it’s a tragedy of commons situation and in these instances the only solutions are rigorous regulation or internalization of the costs of externalities. Both won’t happen, because the politics behind it are also a tragedy of commons.

Nit on economic dynamics: more a Greesham's Law circumstance (bad or no regulation drives out good) than a tragedy of the commons (uncontained resource allocation leads to global overuse).

They're similar, but have some significant and relevant distinctions.

I knew Greshams law in scope of bad money driving out good money. Can you please elaborate more?

https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2h63fp/is_gres...

Responsibility should go together with power.

Who has the power to push for better working conditions, transparency and accountability? Let's see:

- A sailor from poor a countries

- A customer from a wealthy country

- A cash stripped shipping company from a poor country

- A successful and massive company from a wealthy country

- A billionaire owning such company

- A politician in the same country

> Those very nice buildings in Dubai come from some nasty labour practices

I’ve spent the past few months taking a deep dive into the Dubai real estate market. Excluding some villas, there are maybe 2 or 3 “very nice” buildings.

Many look nice on the outside, but rarely on the inside.

Exactly! And I know hardcore capitalist apologists who would say it was his free choice to agree to be legally bound. If you ask me, that’s some next level mental gymnastics, redefining the term “free choice.” But, there are those who disagree with me, and I expect you’ll see some of them show up to react to my comment.

See! They found me! Lol. Predictable. I guess the "marketplace of ideas" is inefficient these days.

>Folks - this is what we are outsourcing and externalizing.

I doubt that you could find even one person on here who wouldn't support a blanket ban of outsourcing/externalization tomorrow.

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