Day 120
DECEMBER 29, 2019
ANOTHER SEA DAY
Time to think, time to write. Just a thought.
One fact that has impressed me throughout this journey around South and Central America is the amount of "local" goods and souvenirs on offer by the vendors. There are literally mountains of goods for sale by each and every one of them. The total value of all the goods in their combined inventories must be astronomical.
Let's take the facts as we know them and try to make a few logical deductions. Firstly, these vendors are not wealthy merchants; they are struggling to get by. So how can they afford the inventories that support their businesses. Let's see. Since they can't possibly produce the quantity of things they are selling, and since most products from vendor to vendor are pretty much identical, they must come from the same source. That's easy - China!
Even the "Peruvian alpaca" shawls, the "Chilean" flutes, the "Argentinean" belts and all the hand painted knick knacks are from China. Of course. That is the generally accepted fact among the savvy travelers on this ship.
So let's look backwards in time for a moment to see how we got to the current state of affairs. It looks as though China has been producing a lot of these goods for a very long time in order to reach today's excessive inventory levels. And I presume that souvenir vendors, not just in South America, but around the world, are replete with unsold inventories.
Now What? Think about it, China's Gross National Product has been growing at double digit rates for at least a decade, and that amazing growth is partly due to products that we see in world-wide souvenir vendors' stalls (and don't forget about all those "ghost cities" too). Ongoing demand for China-produced goods by vendors in future will likely shrink, maybe drastically. Falling demand means that Chinese manufacturers of these goods will need to reduce staff, possibly by millions of workers. Then what? That's a tough question. The marketplace is both complex and complicated - predicting is always hazardous.
Karen and I have already said how impressed we are with the Atacama Desert in Chile and the Sacred Valley of the Incas in Peru. If you want more insight into the Sacred Valley, watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w617MyyG5rU&t=6s
We are just off the coast of Mexico and the Spanish influence continues to be felt - that's a literary segway into this song by Toronto's Jesse Cook playing, "Azul".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb-nMWsHs6c
ANOTHER SEA DAY
Time to think, time to write. Just a thought.
One fact that has impressed me throughout this journey around South and Central America is the amount of "local" goods and souvenirs on offer by the vendors. There are literally mountains of goods for sale by each and every one of them. The total value of all the goods in their combined inventories must be astronomical.
Let's take the facts as we know them and try to make a few logical deductions. Firstly, these vendors are not wealthy merchants; they are struggling to get by. So how can they afford the inventories that support their businesses. Let's see. Since they can't possibly produce the quantity of things they are selling, and since most products from vendor to vendor are pretty much identical, they must come from the same source. That's easy - China!
Even the "Peruvian alpaca" shawls, the "Chilean" flutes, the "Argentinean" belts and all the hand painted knick knacks are from China. Of course. That is the generally accepted fact among the savvy travelers on this ship.
So let's look backwards in time for a moment to see how we got to the current state of affairs. It looks as though China has been producing a lot of these goods for a very long time in order to reach today's excessive inventory levels. And I presume that souvenir vendors, not just in South America, but around the world, are replete with unsold inventories.
Now What? Think about it, China's Gross National Product has been growing at double digit rates for at least a decade, and that amazing growth is partly due to products that we see in world-wide souvenir vendors' stalls (and don't forget about all those "ghost cities" too). Ongoing demand for China-produced goods by vendors in future will likely shrink, maybe drastically. Falling demand means that Chinese manufacturers of these goods will need to reduce staff, possibly by millions of workers. Then what? That's a tough question. The marketplace is both complex and complicated - predicting is always hazardous.
Karen and I have already said how impressed we are with the Atacama Desert in Chile and the Sacred Valley of the Incas in Peru. If you want more insight into the Sacred Valley, watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w617MyyG5rU&t=6s
We are just off the coast of Mexico and the Spanish influence continues to be felt - that's a literary segway into this song by Toronto's Jesse Cook playing, "Azul".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb-nMWsHs6c
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