Jensen: 'We've done our country a great disservice' by offshoring • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by gruez » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 4:22 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #153

gruez wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If I had more disposable income I'd buy more made in the US products but my budget simply doesn't allow it. How's that much different than the parent's claim of "The consumers outsource every time they select for cost."?

It isn't. I'm saying that people select for cost because corporations are actively engaged in pooling resources for the rich. If they didn't people wouldn't need to select for cost as much as they do.

>I'm saying that people select for cost because corporations are actively engaged in pooling resources for the rich.

People select for cost when resources are finite. This is going to be the case until we reach a post-scarcity economy, rich people or not. It's not like under communism everyone was driving around in lambos on gold paved streets.

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

#172

Post by ffsm8 » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 4:23 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #136

afavour wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Clothing is one of the hardest things to automate production of. We have had the "women at a sewing machine" since about 1850. Bring that 1850 women to 2026 with the latest computerized sewing machine and she would be equally productive as she was back then in an hour, and even after working that machine for a decade would not be much faster than she was. We can do a few fancy stitches today that she would have had t…

Nonsense, it's just cheaper to pay someone without any rights 50c/h then to automate it

If that industry was still in the area, they'd be automating the shit outta it. It's just not worth it right now considering there are always literal wage slaves in some place they can ship in for their sweatshops

Also, even locally produced premium clothing uses materials sourced from literal slave labour. There is no consumer decision anywhere, because the immorally sourced materials are just too cheap... And if you're willing to pay a premium for your morals, someone in the middle will just take it and fulfill the order with the cheap stuff.

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

#173

Post by threethirtytwo » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 4:24 PM UTC

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #168

threethirtytwo wrote: post #106

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 b…

The problem is that nothing really stops people from going up the ladder. You mention leeching off technological progress but the reason some are concerned is because they will simply conquer the whole supply chain. Take an example of tesla vs byd. Heck, The electric MI car I saw looked so good and nice, its wild Most of the money I feel like America's still has lots of influence is probably from well established tec…

Yeah I’m saying drop the concern for another country conquering the supply chain. Let China dominate.

Europe is unconcerned. And they benefit from that. I mean real benefits like work life balance not benefits like talking points about which country has the bigger dick.

Do you really want America to be number 1 while you’re slaving away at your job 996 in pollution infested cities?

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

#174

Post by terminalshort » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 4:24 PM UTC

K0balt wrote: post #35

tokai wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sending production to the place with the cheapest labour is great way to have your companies being outcompeted by foreign actors. Unless we want to return to mercantilism a global empowerment of organized labour globally is the only real way to fix this.

This assumes that leadership has a vision beyond the next quarterlies. Offshoring is seen as a solution to organized labor, unfortunately. Exec compensation above a reasonable salary needs to to tied somehow to longer term outcomes.

The only reason offshoring is ever done is because leadership does have a vision beyond the next quarter. Offshoring takes years to pay off because of the upfront costs and time it takes to work out how to run the new operation efficiently.

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

#175

Post by BergAndCo » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC

threethirtytwo wrote: post #106

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 b…

[dead]

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

#176

Post by Imustaskforhelp » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC

itsyonas wrote: post #38

blitzar wrote: post #3

He is free to give back some of his $150bn anytime.

I do think that this is at the heart of the problem. The issue is not an overall lack of wealth, but how it is distributed. This is not going to change, no matter how many data centres or factories are built in the US. Ultimately, all the wealth will still end up in the hands of a select few. Not to mention that we are already exceeding a number of planetary boundaries, which endanger humans. The ever-growing demand…

After spending quite a long time on this thread writing my thoughts etc, I feel like this is the most correct explaination of the situation

Distribution of wealth is the biggest issue and In my opinion, the most tangible way to solve things but then again, this is the core of the issue

Either you need a really anti corrupt body which can do their work and fight against such issues

But with causes like lobbying etc., those get washed up

Or we can have new people (like Zohran etc.) who try not to take lobbying money and then America can have new people who genuinely want to help and not be corrupt

But I am not sure what would happen, perhaps more people follow the example of zohran perhaps not. People are keeping an keen eye of the progress and what can happen. But one of the things which we saw was that although zohran won, I just didn't expect so much competition in the first place when Cuomo got around 40% I think?

it's wild because zohran's message was so well put out and received and this is the state then, I doubt that the voters might replicate it or not

It really depends ultimately on the voters. The truest form of responsibility but its also the lack of options and the two party system which is really bad in America ultimately causing the problems to exist even further.

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

#177

Post by stillworks » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC

Do we (or someone better informed) understand the impact of re-shoring ?

In my mind, the reason (or the original intent) for off-shoring was to reduce costs to be able to sell more X (because cheaper is easier to sell) and selling more X means more profit and better market capitalisation (if the company selling X was public)

If re-shoring is adopted, my assumption/understanding is that X will retail at a higher price. Oversimplification maybe, but higher retail price means lower sales means lower profit (means lower stock price if the company selling X was public)

The solution to that would be higher/more automation i.e. less (or minimal) manufacturing related jobs I think ?

And now the situation would be that while there was capital-return-to-shore happening but went into automation and the jobs recovery was not what someone would have expected (both in terms of scale and skill)

But because the jobs were virtually re-shored the off shore labour market now suffers ?

Thoughts... ?

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

#178

Post by inetknght » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 4:26 PM UTC

ffsm8 wrote: post #172

bluGill wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clothing is one of the hardest things to automate production of. We have had the "women at a sewing machine" since about 1850. Bring that 1850 women to 2026 with the latest computerized sewing machine and she would be equally productive as she was back then in an hour, and even after working that machine for a decade would not be much faster than she was. We can do a few fancy stitches today that she would have had t…

Nonsense, it's just cheaper to pay someone without any rights 50c/h then to automate it If that industry was still in the area, they'd be automating the shit outta it. It's just not worth it right now considering there are always literal wage slaves in some place they can ship in for their sweatshops Also, even locally produced premium clothing uses materials sourced from literal slave labour. There is no consumer de…

> If that industry was still in the area, they'd be automating the shit outta it.

... and the jobs that were provided go poof again.

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

#179

Post by terminalshort » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 4:26 PM UTC

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #88

tokai wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sending production to the place with the cheapest labour is great way to have your companies being outcompeted by foreign actors. Unless we want to return to mercantilism a global empowerment of organized labour globally is the only real way to fix this.

> Not sending production to the place with the cheapest labour is great way to have your companies being outcompeted by foreign actors This is is a fallacious argument. Most or even all of those places couldn't have hoped to out-compete the domestic companies without the traitorous companies shipping complete factories to them. The reason the Soviets didn't outcompete us wasn't down to just incentive structures (thou…

This just comes down to their incompetence. They were communists so they refused to just let thousands of domestic companies start up to produce the machine tools domestically to solve their problem. China did.

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

#180

Post by potato3732842 » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #161

potato3732842 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What growth? A bunch of assholes in offices (edit: and a handful of C-suite above them of course) got rich on RSUs at the expense of the entire rest of the economy. The factory shut down and all those workers are getting screwed driving for some gig service or order picking for ecommerce or whatever. Number go up only matters if the number going up is strongly associated with things getting better. And it didn't even…

The 2-3%/year economic growth that has been common since the 1980s. People getting rich is nothing new. You can go back 50 years, 100 years, 150 years, etc. and find the same kind of debates. The difference is that people work less than ever and obesity is now a sign of poverty rather than wealth. Depression era US had people actually starving. The relative wealth of the middle class in the sixties and seventies is s…

This is the "but iPhones and avocado toast" argument.

Calories and consumer goods are cheaper than ever. Housing, education and healthcare are more expensive than they've ever been. There has been a marked decrease in the amount of personal and economic autonomy available to the middle class and below over the past 40yr. Look at how medium skill level workers lived in the 1980s. It's basically a foreign country compared to today.

Having a robot vacuum to smear your dog's shit all around doesn't actually make you wealthier if you can't afford a house for the dog to shit in and apartments don't allow dogs.

What people want is a comfortable and fulfilling life, both of which are assessed on a relative basis. The modern economy has given them a rat race and shitty highs and they know it. Happy pills don't make depressed people happy. They just make them not depressed.