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Jensen: 'We've done our country a great disservice' by offshoring

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Re: Jensen: 'We've done our country a great disservice' by offshoring

#91

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

ineedaj0b wrote: post #41
moogly wrote: post #13

He is not causally connecting "AI" with industry and manufacturing here. Building data centers isn't manufacturing. He says in this piece that energy production needs to come first, and manufacturing later and not the other way around. Is he saying that AI will require building out energy production and the increased energy production will be used for... manufacturing? But it'll be used for the data centers. What, ex…

the price of metal, raw metal, coming out of factories like aluminum, steel, titanium is high because the cost of energy is high. I think it’s 30%-40% the cost of smelting it. Unless you can drop the price of energy and cheapen the raw material cost, the entire manufacturing industry will be uncompetitive. Primary smelters currently run pretty efficiently but are bottlenecked by two main factors in the USA: raw energ…

>To reduce energy costs… you’ll need about double the current energy production we have today.

I'm worried that if we were to double energy production, all of the new surplus would be soaked up by data centers.

Re: Jensen: 'We've done our country a great disservice' by offshoring

#92

Post by softwaredoug »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #87
softwaredoug wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politics is the art of the possible. If Trump wants to focus on Nuclear, then let’s take the opportunity to improve nuclear.

This only works if Trump is president for life. He only has three years left in office, and you can't build nuclear that fast.

I don’t think Democrats are virulently anti Nuclear the way Trump hates wind farms. Unlike Trump, I don’t think they’ll just stop a popular project meant to provide power for a region.

And in any case 3 years might not finish projects but it might seed a lot of private investment and R&D

Re: Jensen: 'We've done our country a great disservice' by offshoring

#93

Post by luma »

runako wrote: post #36

There are so many underlying changes to the established relationship between Labor and Capital in the US that would be a necessary part of keeping jobs here that it would effectively make us a completely different country. For example -- suppose one could snap one's fingers and "bring back" millions of manufacturing jobs. What would lead one to conclude those would be the kind of "good jobs" everyone is envisioning?…

Service jobs are hard to export, it's just moving money around inside your country. Riveting is a job that produces goods that can be exported for incoming cash, elderly care isn't.

Re: Jensen: 'We've done our country a great disservice' by offshoring

#94

Post by stuffn »

runako wrote: post #36

There are so many underlying changes to the established relationship between Labor and Capital in the US that would be a necessary part of keeping jobs here that it would effectively make us a completely different country. For example -- suppose one could snap one's fingers and "bring back" millions of manufacturing jobs. What would lead one to conclude those would be the kind of "good jobs" everyone is envisioning?…

> What would lead one to conclude those would be the kind of "good jobs" everyone is envisioning

Your entire political statement aside manufacturing was always a good job. I’m not sure if you realize what kind of skilled labor went into manufacturing:

1. Machining 2. Tool and Die 3. Welding 4. Etc

Hell when I was working in construction I was making 20 dollars an hour at 18. That’s good money, and at the time if I would’ve stuck to it I would’ve been able to afford a decent life. My stint as a machinist while backbreaking at times was a good highly rewarding job.

Now, to address your political point. Yes, jobs should pay a living wage. Unfortunately even with such “wage suppression” America is still one of the most expensive countries to live in. We subsidize global food, drugs, etc. I can only agree with your point if we simultaneously become an export economy, and reduce or remove all global subsidy. But the party who supports raising wages also supports near limitless spending on the less fortunate countries. You cannot have both.

Re: Jensen: 'We've done our country a great disservice' by offshoring

#96

Post by afavour »

runako wrote: post #36

There are so many underlying changes to the established relationship between Labor and Capital in the US that would be a necessary part of keeping jobs here that it would effectively make us a completely different country. For example -- suppose one could snap one's fingers and "bring back" millions of manufacturing jobs. What would lead one to conclude those would be the kind of "good jobs" everyone is envisioning?…

Manufacturing in particular... it's very easy for folks to say we should bring those jobs back to the US but people are often shocked when confronted with the prices of items manufactured in the US. I don't say that to dismiss the thought but it would be a lot more difficult for folks to swallow than they think it would be.

Re: Jensen: 'We've done our country a great disservice' by offshoring

#97

Post by khuey »

logicchains wrote: post #82
khuey wrote: post #61

I used to agree with this (at least the headline), but then I lived through the Biden administration. Fundamentally Americans want to consume more services and especially goods than the people living in America produce. The only ways to square that circle are 1. To get more people. But by 2024 prime age labor force participation was at essentially record numbers[0] so there aren't more people available domestically,…

>3. To force people to consume less (i.e. inflation). Voters hate this. Inflation from immigration/offshoring restrictions is not evenly distributed. It's essentially a purchasing power transfer from everyone else to low-skilled workers (who no longer face competition from cheaper overseas labor, so have more bargaining power and hence can demand higher wages from society).

I generally agree with that, but that makes the politics of it even worse because the benefits accrue to the people with the least political power.

Re: Jensen: 'We've done our country a great disservice' by offshoring

#98

Post by bluGill »

ecshafer wrote: post #34
bluGill wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data centers provide jobs. Not as many as manufacturing, but the difference isn't as large as you would guess. A modern data center needs 50-100 people to repair/replace hardware, maintain the generators and such. A modern factory needs 200-500 people to do the assembly, shipping, and other such work that isn't automated. Of course if labor is cheap you can use a non-automated factory and then you will have 2000-1000…

Is that comparison similar square footage? I know of factories that have 10 employees and are small machine shops, and factories that have a few thousand employees (even ones that are highly automated). The difference is scale.

Yes, but I'm comparing a specific factory with a specific data center that I happen to know enough about to compare. There are larger factories that have more people.

The factory I'm thinking of had 2000 people in 1950, and around 250 today - while producing the same amount of product. Automation is continuing to come to that factory - there are number of things that could be automated but their volumes are not quite high enough today to justify the upfront costs.

Re: Jensen: 'We've done our country a great disservice' by offshoring

#99

Post by bluedino »

baal80spam wrote: post #69
ecshafer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my main arguments for a universal health care scheme in the united states is how horrendously expensive, for employers, health care is. Lets totally ignore efficacy, moral arguments, expense for the patient, etc. If you are a company in the US a large percentage of the effective compensation of employees is healthcare. A moderately good PPO is like ~$10k+ a year per employee. You can pay workers in some other…

Asking as not an American - $10k per year, how much % of a yearly salary is it? In Europe (here: Germany example), which is frequently seen here as the ideal example of healthcare spending: Employees and employers typically split around 14.6% of gross salary for public health insurance. [1] [1] https://feather-insurance.com/blog/germany-healthcare-statis...

> Asking as not an American - $10k per year, how much % of a yearly salary is it?

Depends on if you make 35k or 200k/year

Re: Jensen: 'We've done our country a great disservice' by offshoring

#100

Post by khuey »

luma wrote: post #93
runako wrote: post #36

There are so many underlying changes to the established relationship between Labor and Capital in the US that would be a necessary part of keeping jobs here that it would effectively make us a completely different country. For example -- suppose one could snap one's fingers and "bring back" millions of manufacturing jobs. What would lead one to conclude those would be the kind of "good jobs" everyone is envisioning?…

Service jobs are hard to export, it's just moving money around inside your country. Riveting is a job that produces goods that can be exported for incoming cash, elderly care isn't.

Depends on the service. Call center work was easy to export.
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