EGT: Junkyard Planet by Adam Minter

Junkyard Planet

1. Although India and China are both rapidly industrializing countries with a large demand for resources, the vast majority of U.S scrap metal goes to China and India's scrap metal imports are fraction of China's. This disparity is cause by various factors. For example, the Chinese price for the product is usually better than the Indian price, therefore shipping to China will yield a higher profit. A reason for the reason difference is that price in China is driven by desperate demand which makes it better than India's price. Another reason China exports more scrap metal is because the price to ship from Los Angeles to Yantian (or just the U.S to China) is significantly cheaper than the price to ship to the scrap metal ports in India. This difference in shipping price is caused because China exports many more products to the West Coast of the U.S than India does.

2. A passage that I found interesting is on page 100, when Minter is speaking to Sunil and writes

"Where, I ask will he get all of the metal? "I have a new trading office in Dubai", he says "I'll source it there."... I become aware that he longs for the opportunity to buy and ship scrap from the United States, the Saudi Arabia of Scrap. Once or twice he even asks if I might introduce him to a few U.S scrapyards that might be interested in doing business with him. I decline the opportunity... I tell him, "the cost of shipping would kill a deal. He nods silently but I can see his stony, disappointed face that he has witnessed what I know well: the bounty of an American scrapyard"".

I found this paragraph and passage very interesting and it provides a perfect illustration of globalization and global shipping today. Although Sunil is able to import the amount of metal he needs from Dubai, he wants import scrap metal from the  U.S very badly, and finds that it is currently unrealistic. This is because although, global trade is very big, the cost of shipping from India to U.S is great to make a difference. As I said previously, since the cost of shipping to India is greater than shipping to China, the majority of U.S scrap metal is sent to China. However, India is still able to be a major by importing scrap metal from all over the Middle East, because the transportation costs to India in this case would be cheaper.

3. The modern transportation in this article is related to Jared Diamond's article "Why Did Human History Unfold Differently On Different Continents For The Last 13,000 Years" because the main countries involved in modern global transportation are countries that are able to ship globally and participate in the global market. The are mostly developed countries such as the U.S and countries in Europe, or countries that are developing and are important players in global trade. Also in modern transportation a country must have the resources, and infrastructure to be able to send large shipping containers globally. For example in Sudan, where the labor prices are very low they are unable to be major players in the global market because " Sudan doesn't have many factories" and lacks end markets. Therefore Sudan actually exports more scrap metal to India and China. Sudan is unable to compete because as Diamond spoke about due to their geography and climate it is still proving difficult for Sudan to transform into a strong stable developing country.
             
             In addition this article talks about some geographic topics that were are consistent with the geographic topics in Jared Diamond's article. For example, when Minter compares the U.S shipping to China versus India, he shows that although they are both developing and rapidly growing countries, the U.S ships more to India because it is the transportation cost is cheaper due to their geographical location. Just as Diamond wrote in his article, Minter also proves that geographical locations are major factors in the success of different areas. Both these articles agree that industries and civilization have flourished and succeeded greatly in favorable geographic locations, while areas that might have other advantages and resource but are in less favorable locations do not get the same advantages.