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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

#201

Post by mothballed »

terminalshort wrote: post #142
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.

But you wouldn't. You, and everybody else, would see several shirts that looked basically the same and not pick the expensive one without giving it any more thought. If you think I'm wrong, go start a company that makes shirts in the US. You will make a fortune because demand is completely unmet.

The expertise to do that isn't here anymore on a scale to satisfy the majority of the market.

However that is likely exactly what happened when it was finally pretty much killed of in the 90s. At some point clothes were made largely domestically. Some manufacturers started offshoring while others didn't. At that point consumers had a choice, the choice they made was to drive the onshore industries out of business or offshore.

There might be some argument people have more surplus wealth now though, and they'd rather en masse buy those domestic products than healthcare, healthy food for their children, education, housing, and the other stuff that absorbs all the income we can muster. Of course I think there is always a market for people with money for luxury goods, some of them buy USA because it is USA.

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

#202

Post by blitzar »

codegeek wrote: post #48

This doesn't make sense. Nvidia literally has offices all over the world including India (a country that gets the most flak for offshoring). So why now ? Suddenly, "offshoring bad" ? I don't buy it. I think it is more about AI data centers. I could be wrong.

Raise the drawbridge

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

#203

Post by terminalshort »

mothballed wrote: post #201
terminalshort wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you wouldn't. You, and everybody else, would see several shirts that looked basically the same and not pick the expensive one without giving it any more thought. If you think I'm wrong, go start a company that makes shirts in the US. You will make a fortune because demand is completely unmet.

The expertise to do that isn't here anymore on a scale to satisfy the majority of the market. However that is likely exactly what happened when it was finally pretty much killed of in the 90s. At some point clothes were made largely domestically. Some manufacturers started offshoring while others didn't. At that point consumers had a choice, the choice they made was to drive the onshore industries out of business or…

This is true, but let's not pretend that "healthcare, healthy food for their children, education, housing" is what's absorbing all the money. Average car payment is around 700 bucks a month now.

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

#205

Post by rootusrootus »

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.

It would be a virtuous cycle, though, right? If we had the right incentives for keeping manufacturing here, then sure, prices would be somewhat higher [0], but so would income for the very people who would be buying.

[0] But how much higher, really? On a mass production line, what is the actual contribution of wages to the cost to produce?

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

#206

Post by loeg »

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 jobs were only "good jobs" in comparison to the alternatives available at the time. The other options in the US have gotten better in the last 50 years. As much as people hate on service industry jobs, they're much less physically dangerous than working in a mid-20th century manufacturing plant.

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

#207

Post by mothballed »

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.

The jobs also generally suck.

I've worked a wide array of blue collar jobs and manufacturing I always found some of the worst, even worse than stuff like general labor building houses or working on fishing trawlers in the Bering sea because at least that stuff wasn't nearly as rote.

You stand at a machine doing the same fucking thing over and over. Do one thing wrong, your finger gets chopped up -- you think that sounds easy but wait until you're up all night taking care of a screaming infant and then have to come in so your family doesn't starve, then you make a simple mistake and now part of your body is gone. Often a overnight shift. I would find myself waking up at 2,3 am moving my arms but completely unconscious. Sometimes I would catch myself before I stick my hand into something that would break it apart. One place I was working, about half the people were missing fingers.

I don't know why on earth you would want to bring back people getting burned alive in steel mills or their fingers chopped up when a stamping machine has all its safeties break because maintenance didn't maintain them right. Why we would trade away our comparative advantage in things like designing widgets and instead do the awful work making them is beyond me unless you are so desperate it's your only option.

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

#208

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

brightball wrote: post #118
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 jobs bring the entire supply chain of the manufacturer with them. The area where I live, Greenville, SC used to be the textile capital of the world and then became essentially destitute when the entire industry offshored. BMW and Michelin locating their US HQ here essentially rebuilt this entire corner of the state with jobs and associated supply chains. Now, Greenville is booming with a more diverse ec…

> Manufacturing jobs bring the entire supply chain of the manufacturer with them.

Not really... Manufacturing today is a global process and the entire supply chain is usually spread around the world.

One example for a cotton shirt (https://apps.npr.org/tshirt/): the cotton is grown in Mississippi. It's then shipped to Indonesia to spin the cotton into yarn. The yarn is shipped to Bangladesh for rough cut and sewing. The shirt is shipped to Colombia for final assembly. And finally it's shipped to the USA for purchase. Move any one of those steps to the USA, and the other steps may still be located elsewhere.

Same is true of other items, like cars. Ford may "manufacture" in the US, but the parts and tooling are sourced from elsewhere. It can't manufacture the chips here, because the tooling and process are exclusive to Taiwan. Even if you bought the plant and moved it here, the making of the tools and the processes are still specific to Taiwan. And some steps may be impossible to "bring home", either because some other country has all the raw materials, or all the expertise, or local laws prohibit some part of the process being done here.

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

#209

Post by commandlinefan »

tokai wrote: post #29
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…

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.

> companies being outcompeted by foreign actors

I've been hearing this since the early 90's, and I'm still not seeing any evidence that it's true.

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

#210

Post by bflesch »

brightball wrote: post #118
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 jobs bring the entire supply chain of the manufacturer with them. The area where I live, Greenville, SC used to be the textile capital of the world and then became essentially destitute when the entire industry offshored. BMW and Michelin locating their US HQ here essentially rebuilt this entire corner of the state with jobs and associated supply chains. Now, Greenville is booming with a more diverse ec…

So European companies brought new jobs and prosperity to Greenville, SC, and the local Americans thanked Europe by voting 60% for Trump in the last election.

How do you explain that? Why do the locals vote against the countries that provide them the jobs? Are you also pro-Trump because you live in that town?

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