Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

barchart.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 527 posts

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

#101

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

afavour wrote: post #96
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.

That's why I don't like to blame corporations for outsourcing. The consumers outsource every time they select for cost.

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

#102

Post by bluedino »

ecshafer wrote: post #30
hackthemack wrote: post #12

Ross Perot in 1992 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRr60nmDyu4 We have shipped millions of jobs overseas, and ... a strange situation, we have a process in Washington where after you serve for a while, you can cash in, become a foreign lobbyist. We have got to stop sending jobs overseas. You're paying 12, 13, 14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory South of the Border, pay a dollar an hour for yo…

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…

> One of my main arguments for a universal health care scheme in the united states is how horrendously expensive

The costs need to be fixed, first. Moving to the government/taxes paying for it doesn't fix that.

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

#103

Post by bluGill »

jollyllama wrote: post #33
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…

> A modern data center needs 50-100 people I doubt it. Job density for land usage and other externalities generated is going to be one, maybe two, orders of magnitude greater for manufacturing.

One CNC laser cutter replaces the 40 humans in a factory. I don't know how many people the automated paint system replaced... factories are not near as labor dense these days as you would guess.

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

#104

Post by miltonlost »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #101
afavour wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's why I don't like to blame corporations for outsourcing. The consumers outsource every time they select for cost.

That's why I do blame corporations for outsourcing. The companies outsource every time they select for more profit for their owners and not for sharing among the workers.

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

#106

Post by threethirtytwo »

There’s a huge downside to manufacturing and that is pollution.

IMO, I’d rather china be the economic super power and the US leeching off that technological progress and manufacturing the same way say Scandinavia or most of Europe currently does.

Those Europeans get 2 months off while china and the US duke it out and they get all the technological benefits with no downsides. It’s genius.

Everyone talks about the US being number one, but no one wants to put in the effort. You all want to sacrifice work life balance and give up those remote jobs to push the US back to the top? Thats what it takes.

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

#107

Post by emchammer »

hackthemack wrote: post #12

Ross Perot in 1992 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRr60nmDyu4 We have shipped millions of jobs overseas, and ... a strange situation, we have a process in Washington where after you serve for a while, you can cash in, become a foreign lobbyist. We have got to stop sending jobs overseas. You're paying 12, 13, 14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory South of the Border, pay a dollar an hour for yo…

The dignity of three presidential candidates who disagree with each other, sitting quietly while allowing the other to finish using their allotted time…

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

#108

Post by malvim »

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.

That is a fundamental distinction, yes. But the notion that exporting brings wealth to a country is… kinda not really the case anymore.

If that wealth is ending up in very few people’s hands, and if said people are wealthy enough that they keep their money offshore (which is the case a lot of the time), what is the big difference in making something you can export?

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

#109

Post by afavour »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #101
afavour wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's why I don't like to blame corporations for outsourcing. The consumers outsource every time they select for cost.

I'm not aware of that many times where I've had a choice. I could get a nice, expensive dress shirt made in the US but for general clothing it's extremely difficult to buy domestic.

Frankly, a lot of the corporations are still to blame because they're the ones actively concentrating wealth at the top. If I had more disposable income I'd buy more made in the US products but my budget simply doesn't allow it.

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

#110

Post by lanthissa »

the us is 16% of global manufacturing by value with 4% of the population, i dont know how this fact isn't brought up more.

on a population weighted basis the us manufactures more by value than china.

A bunch of people salivating for a world where the us was 52% of world gdp, not because it was great, but because the rest of the world was ash.

Post reply on HN