Junkyard Planet

The following post is related to Chapter five of "Junkyard Planet" by Adam Minter.

1. India and China are both rapidly industrializing countries with a large demand for resources, yet the vast majority of US scrap metal goes to China. Explain why.

This is simply a matter of the cost of transportation to China compared to India. "...it's seven cents per pound to ship it to India, and it's two cents per pound to ship it to China..." That is the major difference. All of those cents add up when you are shipping thousands of tons of scrap! India just does not export enough products to the West Coast of the United States so shipping companies do not have much incentive to offer discount shipping rates form L.A. to Mumbai.

2. Choose a passage from this reading that illustrates a larger issue or problem related to globalization. Explain.

The biggest issue of this chapter is the backhaul. It is a huge expense to ship from one country to another, but that expense is justified since there are products in the ship that are moving towards a country that values the product more. However, if that ship comes back empty, that is a lost opportunity for trade. This creates a problem for large players in globalization trying to trade with smaller players like Uruguay. The large player can send the small player a product, but sometimes the small player does not have a product that they can send back that is of higher value for the large player, unless that product is a finished good. So, this means that they small players have to be manufacturing oriented in order to survive in this global economy. This means that there exists players that do not even get to play! Countries like Kenya first must first develop its industry in order to be effective on a global level.

3. More generally, how does modern transportation relate to the themes raised by Jared Diamond in "Why Did Human History Unfold Differently on Different Continents for the Last 13,000 Years?"

Jared Diamond argues that geographical location played a huge role in the way human history unfolded. The development of the container and container ship further exploited the advantage of geographical location. Countries like China, Japan, and the United States all have access to the Pacific Ocean, which is where most of the trading happens. However, countries, like Uruguay, are facing the Atlantic Ocean and have to make the trek around South America to get to the Pacific Ocean, which is very expensive in terms of shipping. This also builds upon the success of the more powerful countries because they can afford to build these large ports and large container ships, whereas less powerful countries only have ships half of the size of the large container ships. This makes shipping even more costly in less powerful/developed countries. Thus, making them less effective in the global market and leaving them behind in terms of modernization.