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

#211

Post by themaninthedark » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 4:43 PM UTC

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.

Theoretically wages should rise due to the increased demand in labor.

In practice, not sure. But it's not like the prices dropped drastically when mfg. was outsourced, the companies pocketed a most of the savings as profit.

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

#212

Post by tharkun__ » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 4:43 PM UTC

jonhohle wrote: post #59

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…

As someone paying for a family on a marketplace bronze plan, that’s a bargain! I think our premiums will exceed $20K this year. With all of the medical group consolidation, all of the wait time woes our Canadian friends always complained about are the reality here now as well. So I’m paying more than anywhere else on the world and have to wait 6 months for a PCP appointment. We have the worst of both worlds.

I'm curious to compare this to other countries that have state owned/mandated insurance and are so far still mostly covering everything and which are always touted as "superior" to the US, who "have the most expensive health care system". Can't use Canada as OHIP et. al. don't cover much and the same employer tied insurance scheme as in the US exists and is necessary.

An example of a country with "good healthcare" and such a system would be Germany. Extra insurance does exist there as well nowadays from what I understand but health insurance isn't tied entirely to employment and the extras are things like a 20 EUR per month to cover the co-pay on large and expensive procedures. While private insurance exists there too, I want to compare to the often touted "free healthcare" i.e. public system. There are still different providers even under the one public system.

So from a quick search, Germany has insurance rates from ~14-16% of gross salary, half of which the employee pays from their gross salary. But most insurances have an extra percentage they charge on top. I found one as an example that charges 17.29% total, which if you're self-employed, you have to cover yourself (to be comparable to your marketplace bronze plan being entirely self-paid).

Now the question becomes: Are you paying more or less as a percentage of your salary and by how much?

(and side question for your parent I guess: how does that compare to the $10k the employer pays, which would be 8.645% in this example)

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

#213

Post by pessimizer » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 4:45 PM UTC

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.

That's what tariffs are for. These are macroeconomic decisions, not decisions that should flow down to individuals, to be thought of as their responsibility and their moral failing.

Individuals shouldn't be expected to choose to buy American. It's a cost with an at best extremely distant (in time and space) benefit for an individual, and a non-existent benefit unless everyone does it. Instead, when goods are produced by foreign slavers and polluters, they should either be barred from import (if they're morally impossible to support) or taxed arbitrarily in order to optimize the local market, for which discriminatory taxes are not a factor.

But all if this is bad faith reasoning in general. What is produced is shit clothing, with shit treatment of the workers producing it, and intentionally outmoded by planned fashion cycles. If it were quality clothing being imported, labor costs would be a much smaller part of the costs, and therefore of the potential lost margins if owners failed to maximize the exploitation of labor. Tariffs wouldn't even effect quality imported clothing. What they would do is kill the shit imported clothing market, and allow us to redevelop a shit domestic clothing market if the minimum wage were low (i.e. sweatshops), or if we raise the local minimum wage, force a quality local clothing market.

> I'm wrong, go start a company that makes shirts in the US. You will make a fortune because demand is completely unmet.

The belief that macroeconomic problems should be solved by spontaneous generation is a form of religious capitalism. The fact that it doesn't ever happen is pointed to as the evidence that we are always at an eternal maxima. It's a practiced, self-serving denial that our economy is always actively managed by a very few people.

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

#214

Post by stuffn » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 4:45 PM UTC

wvenable wrote: post #113

stuffn wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wo…

"The United States provides over 40% of the world's humanitarian aid, and spends around 1% of its budget on foreign aid, including military aid . Surveys suggest that Americans believe 20% of the federal budget is spent on foreign aid, and that 59% of Americans believe the government spends too much on foreign aid" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_14169

Wikipedia isn’t a primary source. Your entire point can be disregarded.

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

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Post by bluGill » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 4:45 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…

They have been trying. Clothing is hard to automate. It needs to stretch and flex which is a problem for machines. We need many different sizes which makes things harder

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

#216

Post by stuffn » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 4:46 PM UTC

modo_mario wrote: post #162

stuffn wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wo…

>I can only agree with your point if we simultaneously become an export economy, and reduce or remove all global subsidy. Would that not come with the end of the dollar as a reserve currency trough which the world essentially subsidizes american imports?

Necessarily.

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

#217

Post by hackthemack » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 4:46 PM UTC

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…

Side point about this HN post "Jensen: 'We've done our country a great disservice' by offshoring" currently 3 hours and 129 points

Why does it seem like it is getting pushed down relative to other posts that have less upvotes and with longer times?

Here are some posts that are currently higher ranked.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46445412 currently 8 hours and 82 points

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46465493 currently 4 hours and 29 points

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46497589 currently 5 hours and 82 points

It does not make sense unless some force is pushing the Jensen post down, or the other posts up?

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

#218

Post by lanthissa » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 4:48 PM UTC

pepperball wrote: post #127

wvenable wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also US unemployment has been low. The idea that Americans need more jobs just doesn't fit the numbers. There are plenty of good paying non-backbreaking jobs for Americans but they just don't seem to believe it.

> There are plenty of good paying non-backbreaking jobs for Americans but they just don't seem to believe it. Where at?

you can get a job as a long haul truck driver in texas with no education and paid for training paying 80-100k and live in an area where houses cost 300k, within 5 years starting from zero with no education you can own a home and have a nest egg big enough to become an owner operator or invest in a small business.

so thats the floor for anyone willing to put in a few years of work.

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

#219

Post by closeparen » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 4:49 PM UTC

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?…

A line cook makes no more burgers per hour, a hairdresser delivers no more or better haircuts, and a daycare worker watches no more children concurrently than they could have 25 years ago. Meanwhile the Magnificent 7 have emerged. Baumol effects might have raised wages a bit, sure. How could the relative positions of these workers not fall as all these tech-enabled and scale-enabled neighbors come on to the scene?

The whole concept of buying services from people is either that their time is worth less than yours, or they have special skills that you need and lack. “No such thing as unskilled labor,” ok, but you are definitely get sorting on how useful people’s skills are and how difficult they are to substitute or replicate.

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

#220

Post by commandlinefan » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

blitzar wrote: post #3

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

> give back some of his $150bn

To who? There are ~300 million people in the United States. He could give each one a $500 check (assuming he didn't want to keep any of his $150bn). Or should he give it to the U.S. treasury? It's $38 trillion in debt, so he could give up all of his money to pay off 0.004% of it.