Our new Chinese overlords, reptilians and new world order

[Hunka Hunka Burning Love]

Remember way back when "Made in Japan" products were considered poor quality?  Now it's a completely different story.   I wish Chinese companies like Gotway would adopt some of those improvements, values and quality levels that companies like Sony, Yamaha, Mitsubishi, and Toyota have been well known for.

I guess though it has a lot to do with who you have available to engineer the product.  You can tell whoever worked on the Ninebot One E+ that they had some sound engineering principles to work from.  Sourcing components and specifying little details like finishing sharp internal surfaces and edges might add a little to the production cost, but It pays off in the long run as attention to details add up to a much more reliable product that continues to future products.

I think If I ran an EUC company, I'd rather have my company be well known for going that extra mile and have excellent quality over pushing out products that aren't quite thoroughly engineered from the start.  You tend to get loyal, repeat customers who believe in the brand and who have very good reasons to.  The current business practice of trying to fix problems after release can dilute consumer confidence.  We are still in the early days of these wild, wacky wheels so here's hoping for leaps and bounds in improvements!

[Marty Backe]

4 hours ago, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said:

Remember way back when "Made in Japan" products were considered poor quality?  Now it's a completely different story.   I wish Chinese companies like Gotway would adopt some of those improvements, values and quality levels that companies like Sony, Yamaha, Mitsubishi, and Toyota have been well known for.

I guess though it has a lot to do with who you have available to engineer the product.  You can tell whoever worked on the Ninebot One E+ that they had some sound engineering principles to work from.  Sourcing components and specifying little details like finishing sharp internal surfaces and edges might add a little to the production cost, but It pays off in the long run as attention to details add up to a much more reliable product that continues to future products.

I think If I ran an EUC company, I'd rather have my company be well known for going that extra mile and have excellent quality over pushing out products that aren't quite thoroughly engineered from the start.  You tend to get loyal, repeat customers who believe in the brand and who have very good reasons to.  The current business practice of trying to fix problems after release can dilute consumer confidence.  We are still in the early days of these wild, wacky wheels so here's hoping for leaps and bounds in improvements!

I actually do remember those times (60's & 70's). But Japan is a very different country than China, probably the biggest difference being China is a totalitarian country. I think that'll have to change before China can repeat the Japan transformation. That's a big boat to course change so I don't know if it'll happen in my lifetime.

[esaj]

If I remember right, the Japanese electronics "industry" began after the WWII, and for the first decades, they only copied western products, until they got up to speed and could compete both in price and high quality. Similar thing could happen in China too, but how long it takes is anyone's guess. The financial power of the world has certainly shifted east in the 21st century. China seems to be interested in getting their yuan as the global reserve currency, and could pull it off (but not in short term).

The U.S. debt to China is $1.051 trillion, as of January 2017. That's 27.8 percent of the $3.8 trillion in Treasury bills, notes, and bonds held by foreign countries. The rest of the $19.9 trillion national debt is owned by either the American people or by the U.S. government itself.

China holds less than the $1.1 trillion held by Japan. Both countries have reduced their holdings in the past year, but China has reduced it faster.

China held $1.3 trillion in U.S. debt in November 2013. The reason China is reducing its holdings is to allow its currency, the yuan, to rise. To do that, China has to loosen its peg to the dollar. That makes the yuan more attractive to forex traders in global markets.

Long-term, China wants the yuan to replace the U.S. dollar as the world's global currency. China is also responding to accusations of manipulation.

https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-debt-to-china-how-much-does-it-own-3306355

[Marty Backe]

6 hours ago, esaj said:

If I remember right, the Japanese electronics "industry" began after the WWII, and for the first decades, they only copied western products, until they got up to speed and could compete both in price and high quality. Similar thing could happen in China too, but how long it takes is anyone's guess. The financial power of the world has certainly shifted east in the 21st century. China seems to be interested in getting their yuan as the global reserve currency, and could pull it off (but not in short term).

The U.S. debt to China is $1.051 trillion, as of January 2017. That's 27.8 percent of the $3.8 trillion in Treasury bills, notes, and bonds held by foreign countries. The rest of the $19.9 trillion national debt is owned by either the American people or by the U.S. government itself.

China holds less than the $1.1 trillion held by Japan. Both countries have reduced their holdings in the past year, but China has reduced it faster.

China held $1.3 trillion in U.S. debt in November 2013. The reason China is reducing its holdings is to allow its currency, the yuan, to rise. To do that, China has to loosen its peg to the dollar. That makes the yuan more attractive to forex traders in global markets.

Long-term, China wants the yuan to replace the U.S. dollar as the world's global currency. China is also responding to accusations of manipulation.

https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-debt-to-china-how-much-does-it-own-3306355

Sorry, but the world is not going to switch to the Chinese currency, certainly not as long as they are an opaque totalitarian government built on a society rife with corruption. The United States has its problems of course, but fundamentally it continues to be the most stable and dynamic society in the world. And that's where people will always want to anchor their boat.

[Carlos E Rodriguez]

The numbers are not favorable. 

Us population         300,000,000

India population   1,200,000,000

China population 1,4000,000,000

its just one generation away.  All they have to is adopt current technology. We the USA had to invent all of it. They Only have to adopt existing. If they can elevate 1/4 of the population to middle class they will be larger. It's just a matter of number of consumers per economy. 

It does not mean we will be lesser but it does mean we will have more and more competition for everything including intellectual properties and technology. 

The scary part is their lower labor cost will and is having real pressure in maintaining the current USA standard of living. We have seen it already and will continue to cap our incomes until those countries get as expensive as the USA. 

The faster their middle class is elevated the better for us to minimize lower standards of living in the USA. 

And don't forget the rise of the robots for driving around all vehicles anywhere. 

Current safe careers are plumbers, nieces,doctors. Lol. Who know. Maybe it won't be an issue but I have a hard time thinking the standards of living not going lower. 

Posibly we might become a manufacturing economy again supplying products to them with high automation. 

[LanghamP]

EDIT: ^^^^ and I agree with everything he said. We are surely and systematically getting rid of the service class; self-driving cars will put a lot of drivers on the dole.

Whoops, thread hijack.

Interesting website is www.usdebtclock.org which gets most of its information from the department of treasury.

I think the USA is insolvent, or nearly so. That doesn't mean the USA will go belly up; it just means the USA will renegotiate its debt.

Some figures:

--Debt per citizen is $61K, and 165K per taxpayer.

--However, if you add up social security and medicare liabilities, the figure is $881K per taxpayer.

--And if you add up the personal debt per citizen (credit cards, loans, mortgages) the debt is $270K per citizen.

--Basically that means each citizen is responsible for a cool million dollars of total debt. Like I said...insolvent. How long would it take you to pay off a million? And each member of your family?

--29% of the USA is not in the labor force.

When you socialize costs but privatize profits, you will get what we have. I mean, I can't complain since my standard of living is higher than people living a hundred or more years ago. We have it pretty damn nice, methinks. Still, one can't help but think there's a cost, and indeed we can see how the life expectancy of white males of only a high school education has dropped off a cliff. Indeed, white males with no degree takes the dubious honor of the lowest of all life expectancy, even lower than black males!

Not that I meet such people as we sequester them away in hopeless small towns or violent-prone areas of the inner city...well away from where I live and work...still, I read the news.

[esaj]

I probably should cut this conversation to the off-topic, but anyway...

3 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

Sorry, but the world is not going to switch to the Chinese currency, certainly not as long as they are an opaque totalitarian government built on a society rife with corruption. The United States has its problems of course, but fundamentally it continues to be the most stable and dynamic society in the world. And that's where people will always want to anchor their boat.

"Don't shoot the messenger"   Well, I don't think it's going to happen fast, but you must admit that the Asian economies are (at least slightly) booming when the western countries are falling behind all the time. In the end, like @Carlos E Rodriguez above showed in numbers (btw, there's one too many zeroes in the China population -number ), population wise they are a very large portion of the entire planet, so I doubt whether the country's authoritarian or totalitarian won't matter as much as just cold numbers.

I've stumbled upon the "signs" (call it a conspiracy theory, if you will ) since maybe around 2012: the Chinese hold a very large amount of the US (and probably other countries) debt, they're already number #1 in the economy size in terms of "purchasing power parity" GDP ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) ) , and will probably hold first place in the nominal GDP by 2030 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) ) . They're buying up mining and other companies (resources) around the world and have been buying up large amounts of gold (there's been more than a few rumors of gold-backed yuan, but that's just speculation, although it would devastate other fiat-currencies) for several years, but their national bank inventory shows smaller amounts than enters the country, so maybe it's just private companies and people buying? India imports a lot of gold too, but arguably that's just due to traditions (gold being given as gift in weddings and such), and the government has placed some bans and high tariffs for gold import. India was forecasted to rise to 2nd place in GDP by 2050 or so?

But, in the end, who knows? Certainly they've made pretty clear that they want the international trade currency-status (actually, the Yuan has been added to the IMF Special Drawing Rights -currencies, eg. technical reserve currencies lately, Oct 1st 2016?), but that won't happen fast... More like a few decades?

[Marty Backe]

1 hour ago, esaj said:

I probably should cut this conversation to the off-topic, but anyway...

"Don't shoot the messenger"   Well, I don't think it's going to happen fast, but you must admit that the Asian economies are (at least slightly) booming when the western countries are falling behind all the time. In the end, like @Carlos E Rodriguez above showed in numbers (btw, there's one too many zeroes in the China population -number ), population wise they are a very large portion of the entire planet, so I doubt whether the country's authoritarian or totalitarian won't matter as much as just cold numbers.

I've stumbled upon the "signs" (call it a conspiracy theory, if you will ) since maybe around 2012: the Chinese hold a very large amount of the US (and probably other countries) debt, they're already number #1 in the economy size in terms of "purchasing power parity" GDP ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) ) , and will probably hold first place in the nominal GDP by 2030 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) ) . They're buying up mining and other companies (resources) around the world and have been buying up large amounts of gold (there's been more than a few rumors of gold-backed yuan, but that's just speculation, although it would devastate other fiat-currencies) for several years, but their national bank inventory shows smaller amounts than enters the country, so maybe it's just private companies and people buying? India imports a lot of gold too, but arguably that's just due to traditions (gold being given as gift in weddings and such), and the government has placed some bans and high tariffs for gold import. India was forecasted to rise to 2nd place in GDP by 2050 or so?

But, in the end, who knows? Certainly they've made pretty clear that they want the international trade currency-status (actually, the Yuan has been added to the IMF Special Drawing Rights -currencies, eg. technical reserve currencies lately, Oct 1st 2016?), but that won't happen fast... More like a few decades?

I won't shoot you   The fact that China is 'investing' in American currency kind of says it all. The safest place to put your money continues to be the United States.

India also has a huge population but I don't think anyone is predicting their future dominance. So I don't think population size or geographic size matters. Look at the strength of a country like Germany, with a relatively small landmass and population. I think it all comes down to culture, and I'll place my money on the western cultures.

Am I imagining things - wasn't this part of @Rehab1's ACM thread. I thought we were successfully derailing his thread. Old hat for @Hunka Hunka Burning Love I know, but this was my first time 

[esaj]

21 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

I won't shoot you   The fact that China is 'investing' in American currency kind of says it all. The safest place to put your money continues to be the United States.

USD has been the reserve / international trade currency for quite a while, and I doubt it's going to change very soon, especially not in a very short time span. But in the long run, things might change... Or not  If I had some skills in clairvoyance, I'd have made a fortune by now   There are lots and lots of rumors about what's happening in the finance world and politics around the world, probably very few people know the real stories of everything

 

Personally, not a big fan of fiat-currencies / fractional reserve, although they do have their merits

 

Quote

India also has a huge population but I don't think anyone is predicting their future dominance. So I don't think population size or geographic size matters. Look at the strength of a country like Germany, with a relatively small landmass and population. I think it all comes down to culture, and I'll place my money on the western cultures.

Population size has some merit, especially when it comes to GDP calculations, as that's basically just the average production per person times population, but of course in the "real world", there are many more factors affecting things. "Lie, grand lie, statistic" and all that

Culture-wise, we, as western people, probably feel more "safe" (or whatever ) in common cultural surroundings and things, but places like Middle East/Asia/Africa hold a very large amount of the world population and probably see things very differently. If and when they become a much more "meaningful"/stronger part of world politics and/or financials, things might look very different.

 

Quote

Am I imagining things - wasn't this part of @Rehab1's ACM thread. I thought we were successfully derailing his thread. Old hat for @Hunka Hunka Burning Love I know, but this was my first time 

I split it off the original thread to not derail it any further   Maybe I should have left the first or two first posts of this thread in place though...

[Rehab1]

2 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

Am I imagining things - wasn't this part of @Rehab1's ACM thread. I thought we were successfully derailing his thread. Old hat for @Hunka Hunka Burning Love I know, but this was my first time 

Derail all you want. The train always makes it back on the tracks at some point! I see nothing wrong with spicing up a thread!    

[Carlos E Rodriguez]

Agreed no one know the future. To many things out of our control. 

But we need to be alert at what factors are evolving and what we need to do to maintain what we have. 

India was a tribal colony. But they have access to all the base tech and they are cranking out new tech and services themselves. Heck the already have their own satélite launches and a space prove around the moon for real. Then as the economy benefits the populous it just snowballs up to the consumer economy. Unless India and China become an oppressive society, they will possibly take from ours through competition forcing the USA to Lowe our standards. 

But that is just one scenario. We must find a way to continue to provide physical goods and services to the world by being better or providing things only the USA can due to continued innovation ahead of the competition. 

But i feel we are behind. Who has mag-lev trains. We don't. For example. Who has the fastest super computer. We don't anymore. 

All these developing country just need to utilize current commodity technologies that we developed and propell their industries past us. 

What is easier. Build a new factory with current tech or evolve a current company bugged down with dtablished legacy tech?  

I tell you starting from scratch is easier and faster. 

Look what Elon Musk has achieved. The automakers have been talking about electric cars dunce 1980 and never where able to make it work because they have too much bagagge to continue with the making of Mega SUVs. 

We need to be paranoid and make sure we don't lose our technological advantage. 

If we do that we will be ok. 

[Marty Backe]

Although China and India have advanced segments in their society there are vast regions still populated by peoples living in what we would describe as primitive conditions. Large groups can't even communicate with each other because they don't speak the same language within their own country. The United States still has a very large middle class with a relatively small poor and rich segments. That's not the case in India or China.

I'm not hoping for them to fail (I'm not a fixed size pie kind of guy). If they were to become as successful as the United States the world would be a better place.

I just don't see it happening because of their cultures. Until the 20th century China was a feudal society and then they were destroyed by Mao. Americans are a product of a couple thousand years of western culture. I suppose it's an open question whether a non-Western based society can achieve the same heights of economic success. It hasn't happened yet.

[Carlos E Rodriguez]

Amazing. Companies whine about available engineers and here you go Boeing laying off hundreds due to competition  I think this supports my view that China and India competition is eating at out standard of living capping salaries, forcing layoffs  heck one or two years ago GE rammed down a 25% hourly wage reduction for all new hires   

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/boeing-plans-more-layoffs-affecting-hundreds-engineers-source-163319384--finance.html

[Mono]

On 13/04/2017 at 5:21 PM, Marty Backe said:

be the most stable and dynamic society in the world

looks almost like a contradiction in terms

[Marty Backe]

1 hour ago, Mono said:

looks almost like a contradiction in terms

Stable in terms government, dynamic it terms of the economy and everything else.

[Mono]

7 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

Stable in terms government, dynamic it terms of the economy and everything else.

I was sensing some sort of American exceptionalism there, was not sure, but then came the everything else 

[Marty Backe]

6 hours ago, Mono said:

I was sensing some sort of American exceptionalism there, was not sure, but then came the everything else 

Sorry, no offense intended 

[Mono]

3 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

Sorry, no offense intended 

None taken.

[Scatcat]

To put in my 5¢ worth of thoughts, I think China economically is where the US were in the 19th century. That is also true for India, but maybe to a somewhat lesser extent. While the EU and the US plays the role of old Europe.

Think about it, as the 19th century started, Europe was the stable but stagnant society with a long history of philosophy, science, education, production, literature and so on. In the beginning the US was clearly second rate but that changed mighty fast. And even though the US started the century with the southern parts basically a slave labour economy producing raw materials for clothing, went through a civil war and the conquest of natives, it ended the century at least on par technologically with Europe - behind in some areas, in front in others. Even as late as the great war, a massive part of US war-production was basically adaptions of British inventions. British and French aircraft, tanks and other stuff, mixed with homegrown tech. Hop forward a couple of decades and the US had not only drawn up parallel but gone past most of Europe.

A lot of that was pure industrial power, basically good tech and education combined with the capability to build massive infrastructures and plants. A lot was boom-town mentality, everything from klondike-style gold rushes, oil rushes, colonisations of new states, immigrants that couldn't wait to get their feet wet and make a living. The land of possibilities, when Europe was stagnant with bureaucracy, old habits, old power, old money and intellectual stratification.

A Shenzhen could well have been a new US town just raring to grow to magnificence from nothing. They may well rely in big parts on western innovations for now, but they're not stupid. Before we know it, they will innovate like crazy – when do we see the first Chinese Edison, or have we already?

So they're totalitarian? Oh yes they are, but so were both the majority of Europe and to a large extent the US. There were strongmen, most people didn't vote, the law was summary and often brutal, and while the constitution said every man had inalienable rights, not everybody counted as men in most peoples opinion. That didn't stop progress.

My guess, is that in no more than a few decades, China will be on par with us in innovations, and in another few decades the totalitarianism of today will fade to something else. That something else may not be the democracy we are used to, but it will be less all-encompassing than now. Heck, the totalitarianism of "now" is far less all-encompassing than of yesteryear.

What will happen with us in the meantime, is anybody's guess, and probably too political to discuss in a forum where we're all supposed to be friends  

Hmm, might be time to learn chinese...  

[Marty Backe]

34 minutes ago, Scatcat said:

<snip>

So they're totalitarian? Oh yes they are, but so were both the majority of Europe and to a large extent the US. There were strongmen, most people didn't vote, the law was summary and often brutal, and while the constitution said every man had inalienable rights, not everybody counted as men in most peoples opinion. That didn't stop progress.

<snip>

The US was  totalitarian? What history books have you been reading 

Maybe it's not politically correct to say, but I believe the western culture has been the reason for our dominance and I believe we will continue to dominate far into the future. Just my opinion of course.

[Scatcat]

19 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

The US was  totalitarian? What history books have you been reading 

Maybe it's not politically correct to say, but I believe the western culture has been the reason for our dominance and I believe we will continue to dominate far into the future. Just my opinion of course.

No, not totalitarian on paper, it was a republic then and now.

But in reality. Try being black in the south before the 1960s for example... Get into a small western town in the mid 19th century and the sheriff didn't like strangers, see what rights you'd have then? Try being a worker bearing placards for a reasonable salary or working conditions when the factory owner brings the national guard.

Totalitarian is the wrong word I suppose, but freedom is not an on or off thing.

[Carlos E Rodriguez]

We can not just see one moment in time. We have to go back 100 years and see how it all evolved.

From Oppressed religion Quakers. To starving Irish. And the drive to the west and stake a homestead. We have a culture of go stake your ground and build something better and bigger. Now that is just one period that leads to others.

Then slavery and is ugly face. We are still trying to move on from that. Not so long ago there was segregation and not all could benefit of the new american culture of independence, privacy, entrepeneuralship. But for the majority white it was a period of great prosperity.

Also up until recently women could not vote. The slavery and women right was and still is a ugly isue in our country. Not to say other countries also have similar isues. So in General America is still the best environment to innovate due to our cultural independent thinking culture. But there is still a lot or racism.

Also our policies of promoting small business and trade have allowed us to prosper. But all does not last forever. At some point, saturation hits. And the borders had to be open and trade had to be open to allow other countries to prosper. WHY? Well in a perverse way, we can not prosper as a supplier of goods and services if we are the only ones that can afford them so we had to open the world. That caused and is still causing a lot of pain to the working middle class. We have been loosing ground for 30 years now when put in balance with inflation. And the distribution of wealth is extremely out of balance. I know I can not do the JOB of a CEO executive, but making 20 million in income yearly is grotesque and in a way not fair. my contributions allow the COE to prosper and the middle class should have a more equitable piece of the wealth. I work very hard too doing what I do. Is a CEO 10 times smarted than me? I doubt it. but I will give him that. So if an Engineer makes 100,000 I think a CEO making 1,000,000 per year is plenty. The rest should be going to the shareholders and to the employees. Possibly as more profit sharing. 

But America is still the best place to innovate and prosper. But there will be periods like now where other countries have stepped in and taken production and services that we us to do or lowered the cost of it, forcing layoff and reductions on salaries. And that is just a reality of the evolution of national economies. So we had a big pie and and we had to share it and now we have a little less. So we need to evolve and find new way. But it will also balance at some time when those other countries move up on the middle class levels. So in a way it will balance itself our, but we ned to stay competitive ans survive so when costs become equal we can take back our share. Whatever labor reductions we have now, ware and will come back as the sector costs around the world become equal.

At one point we made all the cars. Then Japan stepped in and took market share. But now almost all the foreign brands ahve factories in the USA so it came back. But back then it cost a lot to Detroit and to a big extend Detroit never recovered because the auto sector got spread out to other states were toyota, mercedes, bmw opened factories.

So now I have no idea what I am talking about. But in summary economies are cycles. Some cycles are triggered by other countires stepping is sectors and other cycles are population demographic shifts. Japan is suffering a transformation for the last 30 years since its population is shifting from majority young to majority old and their stock market showed it. It declined for 20 years. Will the USA have the same issue? Dont know the USA will have the same issue. For us it will be different than Japan because there is more technology available. YOu have seen the articles about automation in all areas with robots. We will use that to supply more productivity and cover labor shortages. If they become true. Or maybe nothing will happen. Who knows. If you assume people are having less children then labor shortage will be a reality.

[Carlos E Rodriguez]

30 minutes ago, Scatcat said:

No, not totalitarian on paper, it was a republic then and now.

But in reality. Try being black in the south before the 1960s for example... Get into a small western town in the mid 19th century and the sheriff didn't like strangers, see what rights you'd have then? Try being a worker bearing placards for a reasonable salary or working conditions when the factory owner brings the national guard.

Totalitarian is the wrong word I suppose, but freedom is not an on or off thing.

very true. At multiple periods in US history the middle class had to revolt and force equality. It did not came as a gift of democracy. We are a Socialistic Capitalistic Democracy. Capitalism without social agendas is plain slavery. Owners getting the most work for the least pay if they could get away with it. But our system is balance and the socialistic aspect is a big part of it to allow everyone an opportunity to prosper it they want to work hard for it. And not just work hard for survival income.

[Scatcat]

I just wanted to add, to be absolutely clear, that if my comment implied criticism against the US, that criticism is just as valid for Europe or even more specifically Sweden where I live. @Carlos E Rodriguez comments about America being the best place to innovate and prosper is well taken, it was, and maybe it still is.

The US is still a very great country which I admire, with its roots in the wish for individual freedom and prosperity. Sadly, and this is just as true here as in the US, people tend to forget the message and worship the creeds. We're going red tape and opaque rules for private ventures; we have a high expected standard of living, which means high costs of both design and production. We try to solve the problem with hard IP laws, but that is probably a dead-end. If people know a thing can be done, protecting how is just a way to force others to come up with alternatives that work just as well.

I have no patented answer to the conundrum, but I am curious what we can do to end the gridlock?

 

[Marty Backe]

6 hours ago, Scatcat said:

I just wanted to add, to be absolutely clear, that if my comment implied criticism against the US, that criticism is just as valid for Europe or even more specifically Sweden where I live. @Carlos E Rodriguez comments about America being the best place to innovate and prosper is well taken, it was, and maybe it still is.

The US is still a very great country which I admire, with its roots in the wish for individual freedom and prosperity. Sadly, and this is just as true here as in the US, people tend to forget the message and worship the creeds. We're going red tape and opaque rules for private ventures; we have a high expected standard of living, which means high costs of both design and production. We try to solve the problem with hard IP laws, but that is probably a dead-end. If people know a thing can be done, protecting how is just a way to force others to come up with alternatives that work just as well.

I have no patented answer to the conundrum, but I am curious what we can do to end the gridlock?

 

Well said in all respects. I'm trying to refrain from diving more into the conversion because these topics have a tendency to devolve quickly