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

#271

Post by closeparen » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 5:24 PM UTC

epicureanideal wrote: post #250

closeparen wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? Th…

> 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? Supply and demand? If the population of hairdressers was small, so they could charge more and more, then their wages could keep up as a percentage. And that would be possible if for example so many people moved into high productivi…

That’s the Baumol effect. The rising tide does lift all boats to an extent, but not the same extent.

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

#272

Post by almosthere » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 5:24 PM UTC

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #208

brightball wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They didn't have those steps outside the USA in 1960, yet people wore shirts. Those steps can come back.

For cars I found it interesting that my water pump on my Dodge Ram is stamped with Made in Italy. Yet the part is fairly small that even if Italy continues to make it, they can ship 50k water pumps in one shipping container to Detroit, and the truck can still be assembled here. That's not an issue. The issue is when the truck is made in Mexico entirely (which I think they still are). I know that's not "the entire supply chain" but it certainly becomes a center of gravity.

Last year many people were talking about dev shops changing their "center of gravity" from the US to other places like Poland. In other words, CEO here, EVERYTHING else is in Poland. Wherever that center of gravity is, that's the country that will benefit the most. They may even hire a remote worker in the US that is up all night - but it will be the exception, not the rule to hire US people.

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

#273

Post by ryandrake » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 5:27 PM UTC

mothballed wrote: post #207

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.

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 sou…

Out of all the many industries out there, I don't understand why we keep glorifying and romanticizing manufacturing and trying to "bring it back." I've also worked a few of these jobs and you're right: THEY SUCK. Depending on what you are manufacturing, it can be boring, stressful, stinky, physically taxing, or dangerous. And most of them, even the highly skilled ones, don't pay well. For the sake of our own society, we should be getting rid of these jobs, not adding them.

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

#274

Post by wvenable » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 5:27 PM UTC

stuffn wrote: post #214

wvenable wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Literally every sentence of that quote has sources listed in Wikipedia.

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

#275

Post by AlexandrB » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 5:29 PM UTC

threethirtytwo wrote: post #173

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Do you think Europe will be able to benefit from this forever if current trends[1] continue? I'm not so sure.

[1] https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-has-the-economic-...

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

#276

Post by foobarian » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 5:32 PM UTC

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #242

foobarian wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's hard to overstate how big of a deal "Labour needs to be empowered globally" is. Think of it as two huge reservoirs of water, one of which is at a higher altitude. If you connect them with a pipe, they will inevitably tend to equalize - this is what is happening with globalization. It's good for the developing world but bad for the developed. The labor class not only needs to demand better working conditi…

I doubt that an equilibrium can ever be reached tho. The biggest issue is that even if one provides better working conditions, but also standards of living, environment regulations, housing, etc. etc Even then, there would still be an imbalance and equilibrium would still not be reached simply because of power purchasing parity and other factors. Plus another issue is corruption. There are rules and laws already in p…

I don't have any solutions unfortunately but I appreciate your considered response!

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

#277

Post by alfiedotwtf » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 5:35 PM UTC

“We?”… how insulting.

I’ve noticed again and again what’s missing from the often repeated by media blame game of “they’re taking our jobs” is the fact that it was US corporations purposefully offshoring in the name of maximising profits at the expense of paying US wages locally, rather than countries “stealing” the jobs ffs! It’s. Pure. Xenophobic. Deflection. FFS!

“They’re stealing our jobs!”. No… corporate America applied the Ferengi Rules of Aquisition #6 to whole industries for a quick buck.

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

#278

Post by bee_rider » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 5:37 PM UTC

rs999gti wrote: post #115

bee_rider wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we had some tariffs that somehow just canceled out the exploitation (of people and the environment), that could be interesting. “Stop sending jobs overseas” is too blunt, create a fair international market and let winners win. But, I don’t think anyone is naive enough to propose such a thing seriously. It is impossible to believe that some administration wouldn’t use it for political favors.

> create a fair international market and let winners win. Why? It's selfish, but since the US and EU sent jobs out to India and China. India and China, have created protections that make getting those jobs back nearly impossible short of stopping payments. At the same time, these countries have huge trading imbalances (see FR complaining that their CN trade imbalance is untenable) and have become the defacto for chea…

I’m not sure what the “It’s selfish” part means, did you leave out a suggestion of some selfish action you think we should take?

I’m hoping that free markets tend to produce winners more often than protectionist ones. I don’t really want stagnant US companies to just stick around because they cozied up to the government.

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

#279

Post by almosthere » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 5:38 PM UTC

Teever wrote: post #252

spankalee wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prices absolutely _did_ drop dramatically for many, many things that are manufactured overseas. Goods from from clothes to electronics are vastly cheaper.

How much is that due to genuine innovation in manufacturing and automation vs cheaper labour and a lack of environmental and human rights regulations?

For clothing, for the most part is an Indian woman that is moving the cloth on a sewing machine still. We have not LLM'd making clothes yet. Nike and a few other companies are working on 3d printing shoes, but it's not comparable to hand made yet.

For the most part, the price of a shirt made in India vs USA is the cost of labor. The Indian woman will work for $3 per hour which is a decent wage for that area (don't fact check me, it's just a guess here). She can probably make 5 shirts an hour.

A woman in the United States will make $16 per hour and still make just 5 shirts (or less - more rules in the US about breaks, and probably streaming Netflix too)

Now the company that sells the shirt at Walmart for $10 will have a profit margin of probably $5 per shirt from the Indian labor, and $1 from the US labor.

Technically after the industry is built out more we may be able to squeeze more shirts per hour if we start doing technical innovations (for example we make a machine that pre-sews 5 of the seams because of innovation. This is something that won't happen if the center of gravity is in India, but may happen in the US. (Actually today that may happen in India as tech is taking on its own thing there now).

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

#280

Post by intalentive » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 5:39 PM UTC

YY4398742398 wrote: post #230

terminalshort wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have one of 3 choices here: 1. Low paid American workers glue iphones together in sweatshops 2. Low paid Chinese workers glue iphones together in sweatshops 3. Well paid American workers glue iphones together in sweatshops, and to make this possible we have a massive tariffs regime that makes consumer goods massively more expensive and massively increases the price of all manufactured goods. Pick your poison. The…

Chinese workers are not "low paid" relative to prices of goods in China though. A Chinese worker gluing an iPhone together can afford a decent middle class lifestyle, the Chinese version of the "American dream". What America really needs is massive deflation in the cost of everything, curbing income inequality (which is driving inflation) and moving to renewables (cost of oil/gas also drives inflation).

Yes, and a big part of the reason labor costs are so high is that living costs are high. The US worker is saturated with debt, fees, payments, rents of every stripe.