https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLhmLC8TTjE

Germany: Elon Musk makes first visit to Berlin Gigafactory | Ruptly

Tesla CEO Elon Musk visited the construction site of the company's gigantic Gigafactory on Thursday for the first time. Musk gave a brief interview with reporters upon his arrival to the Gigafactory.

"Deutschland rocks. Wait until we have the rave cave here, that's gonna be great. We wanna make this a real fun place to work. We wanna make it beautiful and blend in to Grunheide. It's a great place to work, making cool cars," Musk said immediately after arriving.

Located just 35 kilometres (20 miles) south-east of central Berlin, Gigafactory Berlin will produce batteries, cells, and assemble Tesla Model 3, Model Y. It aims to have an annual capacity of 500,000 cars. The budget for the factory is believed to be approximately €4 billion ($4.7 billion). Production is scheduled to begin in July 2021.

Musk was questioned by a supporter regarding the recent lack of water issues in the region. "It's not a very intense user of water and we will recycle as much as is humanly possible. I think this will be, I'm pretty confident it will be the most environmentally friendly factory in the world," answered Musk.

Some diehard fans lined the entrance to get the chance to grab an autograph or a selfie with Musk, and those interviewed showered praise on the entrepreneur.

"I consider him to be an amazing guy, because he has ideas, asks if it is feasible, and puts it in place. It could perhaps be a good signal for our industry, also for trade. And to sort out the economy in Germany," said one Tesla enthusiast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njd12Wqab10

Who would take over if Portland’s mayor resigns? | KGW News

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https://mexiconewsdaily.com/opinion/made-in-china-is-a-far-more-common-label-than-made-in-mexico/

Made in China is a more common label than Made in Mexico. Why? | mexiconewsdaily

Mexican entrepreneurs should be lining up to replace Chinese exports to the US

By Carlisle Johnson

Published on Tuesday, August 25, 2020

This morning my 13-year-old, looking at something on Amazon, said, “Don’t buy that, it’s from China. They gave us the virus.”

I could have given her a lesson on free trade and comparative advantage. Instead my mind turned to a question that’s been bothering me for years — “Why not buy it from Mexico?”

Mexico is right next door to the world’s biggest and richest market. China is thousands of miles away.

Mexico’s minimum wage is about US $6 a day. In China it’s on average over $12 a day.

China is dependent on expensive imported energy. Mexico exports energy.

So why is my classic “kitchen drawer from hell” filled with Made in China utensils and why is my closet bulging with Chinese-made clothing and shoes? And nothing from Mexico?

In recent years I’ve dined with a storied Mexican entrepreneur in Puebla, flown with an energetic Polish entrepreneur who was giving up and selling out and heading home to Warsaw from Yucatán, and worked with the sugar/ethanol industry in Guatemala, where the same issue is pertinent.

Here are their real-world answers to the “Why not” question.

The Mexican entrepreneur, not a man of many words: “Inefficiency.”

The Polish entrepreneur, wealthy from furniture exports from relatively treeless Poland to Sweden’s IKEA, only slightly more wordily: “The workers don’t show up.”

The Guatemalan sugar entrepreneur, responding in much greater detail to a question as to why he kept so many mechanical harvesters on hand when his cane was harvested by hand, said, “Mother’s Day, My Birthday, My Saint’s Day, My Village’s Patron Saint’s Day, Army Day, Christmas Week, Easter Week, Various Anniversaries of Various Revolutions, labor law-mandated two weeks’ vacation a year” and “sugar cane doesn’t reach an ideal harvest date according to a calendar. We have to be able to harvest it exactly when it’s brix-ready [a key measure of sweetness].” Then, a little more succinctly, he added, “Insurance.”

I don’t have the answer, but long before the latter real-world encounters the issue came to my fore in an academic setting. I took a grad school course in the economies of developing countries, and about the only thing I remember was called the “Backward Bending Supply Curve for Labor,” a name only an economist could love.

First documented in post-World War II West Africa, it described in economist-ese the situation on a West African coconut plantation where it was well documented that when workers had picked the number of coconuts on a given day to be paid “enough” for their needs, they simply put the machetes away and went home. Today there is no West African coconut industry to speak of.

I’m left unsatisfied at posing a question for which I have no answer. But surely it is the question for both the present and the future. On paper Mexican entrepreneurs should be lining up to replace Chinese exports to the vast U.S. market.

They are not.

Why not?