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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

#391

Post by groos »

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).

Deflation is never going to be allowed to happen even if economic conditions allow it. The reason that the Federal Reserve wants inflation at ~2% is so that nobody hoards cash in their home and instead spends it before it loses value or puts it in a bank to lend to the economy or invests it. Deflation would mean that you could hoard cash and it would grow in value, leading to less money available for economic growth.

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

#392

Post by tracker1 »

nonford150 wrote: post #257
StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They extended their operations there because Biden lured them with insane subsidies. Don't commit the mistake of thinking Trump politics is a rupture from what came before when it comes to how the US treats Europe. It's been economic aggression after economic aggression from both parties since Obama. Different styles, same core ideas.

The subsides were during Clinton and Bush 2. BMW and Mercedes were here long before Biden and Obama. It makes good sense to manufacture your product in the area it is sold - that's the real reason for their mfg base establishment. Not only the direct jobs, but also the other support ones - automation, suppliers, maintenance, facilities work, etc.

Absolutely, especially with larger/heavier items like cars... I'm frankly somewhat surprised there aren't more assembly plants across the US just to reduce the shipping costs of the final product. Even with a more globalized supply chain of the component parts.

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

#393

Post by naasking »

nickff wrote: post #347
cduzz wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, let's look at UnitedHealth Group; do they deliver health care? If there were single payer, what would their role be in the healthcare delivery process? Apparently they made 2.3 billion in profits on 113 billion in revenue in Q3 of 2025. How much of that friction would evaporate if they weren't in the healthcare delivery infrastructure. Someone once said "the best part is no part" ?

Compare UPS or FedEx to USPS; the first two companies are profit-seeking, yet very competitive with the 'public-oriented' (and legally privileged) USPS. Having the government in control does not necessarily lead to better value.

They are very competitive in the places where most people live, but the USPS delivers to many more places that the others do not, and still maintains cost competitiveness.

This turns out to be a decent analogy to healthcare: insurance companies do not provide the coverage, universality and simplicity that a single payer system would; instead, you'll get something like insurance coverage networks providing spotty and inconsistent care.

Either approach has upsides and downsides, but single payer, universal coverage for basic and emergency healthcare seems like a no-brainer.

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

#394

Post by jghn »

mullingitover wrote: post #335
bflesch wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you even call HN a liberal forum? It is full to the brim with profiteers who have no ethical framework except making money for US-based VCs. The past years have shown that many have no problem to change affiliation with the zeitgeist. I feel many Americans are secretly pro-Trump as long as they make money. If there would be more liberals in US tech we would see much more leaks coming from companies such as Appl…

> Would you even call HN a liberal forum? I just look at the patterns of things that are downvoted to death. Comments that would come out of Peter Thiel or Elon Musk's mouth any day of the week are regularly downvoted to hell here. It's not a matter of 'liberal' vs whatever anymore, it's a matter of expertise and basic ethics versus corruption riding upon anti-intellectualism, cloaked in naked bigotry. Say what you w…

My observation over the last 10-15 years here has been this is partially true. But what's more true is the Overton window has shifted. To use your example, the things that would come out of their mouths, especially Elon, has taken a decidedly right wing turn over time. So keep in mind you're also seeing people who have largely stayed the same discussing a culture that largely has not.

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

#395

Post by mothballed »

MisterTea wrote: post #387
ryandrake wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> For the sake of our own society, we should be getting rid of these jobs, not adding them. So let me get this strait. You think these dangerous, monotonous jobs are bad for "our own society" so the best thing for "our own society" is to export these dangerous jobs to another society "own own society" doesn't give a shit about. Wonderful. I can't believe how ignorant and callous people can openly be.

You can't seriously believe those other societies are taking manufacturing jobs because they are worse than what they already have. People in the 3rd world are less fortunate; they're not dumb -- they want the same as us: better lives for themselves and their family. If they're working in a factory and not the alternatives it's because they passed something else along the way that was an even shittier option than that.

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

#396

Post by quickthrowman »

StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #237
bflesch wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

They extended their operations there because Biden lured them with insane subsidies. Don't commit the mistake of thinking Trump politics is a rupture from what came before when it comes to how the US treats Europe. It's been economic aggression after economic aggression from both parties since Obama. Different styles, same core ideas.

> They extended their operations there because Biden lured them with insane subsidies.

Biden, really? If you’re attempting to stop disinformation, please start with yourself.

Michelin opened their US headquarters in Greenville in 1984. BMW opened their plant in South Carolina in 1994.

How was (at the time) Senator Joe Biden of Delaware responsible for that in any way? Why would he care so much about South Carolina?

The real reason is shipping tires and vehicles across oceans is expensive.

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

#397

Post by terminalshort »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #341
terminalshort wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire point of producing more energy is to consume it. A surplus of electricity on the grid is actually a bad thing that needs to be dealt with.

>The entire point of producing more energy is to consume it. If the point of producing more energy is to produce more products, and instead it gets gobbled up by idiots giving us the next crappy phone app that runs in the cloud, then it's not me that's missing the point si it?

All those computers in the data center are just as much products as anything else. If you don't like the apps, by all means don't buy them.

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

#398

Post by MetaWhirledPeas »

ctoth wrote: post #380
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?…

> There is no economic rule that says that riveting should pay more than taking care of the elderly or food delivery. There is, in fact. Baumol's Cost Disease, and it's a real bitch. Manufacturing has compounding productivity gains - one worker today produces vastly more than one worker in 1950. Elderly care doesn't. You can't make a caregiver 10x more productive through better tooling. The productivity ceiling is fi…

> It means wanting isn't a mechanism.

Well we still have demand in the equation. If demand for service workers grows, so will their compensation. (And so will the cost for those services.) So the possibility is there.

People with more disposable income (the high-productivity ones I guess) demand more services. The question will be whether that demand will grow sufficiently to raise the compensation to where we want it to be.

What I also don't know is how we will respond to service jobs being automated. "Premium" service usually shuns automation. Will we have fewer fast food workers and more massage therapists?

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

#399

Post by MSFT_Edging »

cpursley wrote: post #249
bflesch wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

HN sure does like beating up on folks in the Southern US by painting us all with the same brush, it's the worst kind of ugly.

It's not called the Southern Strategy for shits and giggles.

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

#400

Post by tracker1 »

AlexB138 wrote: post #370
cootsnuck wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole concept of buying services from people is either that their time is worth less than yours And if everyone else's time has become more valuable then too has the time that is being saved by buying services. If my time as a programmer is worth significantly more now than it was 25 years ago, then the time I save by buying services is worth more. There's a reason that someone making $1mil/year is going to be…

You're only looking at half of the equation here. Following your logic, if my time is worth $100/hr, I should be willing to pay $99/hr for a haircut. But reality is that a haircut isn't just worth some utility value based on time saved, it's worth the lowest amount where suppliers' willingness to provide it at a given quality and buyers' willingness to pay meet. So while the $99/hr haircut might technically save me m…

I'm mostly bald... I got tired of paying as much as I did for haircuts and now mostly just use a pair of clippers on myself, since my goal is to take off all of it. I've paid for more beard trims the past few years than haircuts, though I mostly do that myself too.

Note, I usually use clippers on myself about once a week. Sometimes I'll use a shaver to get a closer shave, but generally doesn't matter as I don't care if there's a little growth, which is noticeable unless I literally shave daily anyway... which I'm too lazy to do, and definitely not able to pay someone else to do.

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