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"I Was a Director at Amex When They Started Replacing Us with $30K Workers" [video]

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Re: "I Was a Director at Amex When They Started Replacing Us with $30K Workers" [video]

#41

Post by jerkstate »

yongjik wrote: post #37
quacked wrote: post #4

The two American political parties are so perfectly shielded by their own ideological blinders to avoid any possibility of national protectionism against offshoring and outsourcing that I don't think there will ever be any kind of movement against this. The conservative base is unfriendly to foreigners and foreign cultures, and claims to prefer American-made goods and services, but will immediately guillotine any int…

Protectionism may work in some cases, but even when it works, it works by making things more expensive. People don't buy American cars because it's cheaper to make similar cars in Mexico. Fine, so let's force companies to make cars in America. It's now more expensive (otherwise we won't be importing from Mexico in the first place). You add more and more protectionism, it may get some jobs back, but the price is that…

I think you need to look at the data before making assertions like this.

> People don't buy American cars

53% of cars sold in the US are assembled in the US versus 18% assembled in Mexico.

> things get more and more expensive. And not by a few percent, more like by 50% or more.

The total cost of manufacturing wages only account for 5-15% of the MSRP of a vehicle. So moving manufacturing from an expensive country to a cheap country only changes the price by maybe 10% due to the impact of wages.

Re: "I Was a Director at Amex When They Started Replacing Us with $30K Workers" [video]

#42

Post by cmxch »

OutOfHere wrote: post #14

Between AI and outsourcing, desk jobs in the US can risk disappearing altogether. Do not count on them, and do not expect you to be owed anything. Go in every day knowing that day can be your last day there, and you will be at peace. Find your own alternate paths.

Can’t offshore cleared government work.

Re: "I Was a Director at Amex When They Started Replacing Us with $30K Workers" [video]

#43

Post by bagacrap »

llmslave wrote: post #25

I worked there a long time ago. Indian VPs were taking kickbacks from consulting firms to hire their devs, it was an open secret. Whole divisions of the company are 95% Indian. I wont expose the group here, but there's a broad network of technology directors from Amex, that have all been hiring and promoting eachother for 20 years. Very tight nit networks of nepotism, in some cases, brother and sister working togethe…

Amex has less than 10% worldwide market share and is a distant 4th behimd unionpay, visa, mc. I don't see the monopoly here.

I have to say I was relieved when my Amex card issuer switched to visa because owning an Amex is a pita. I think they build their business on various rewards programs, the brand itself is garbage in my eyes.

Re: "I Was a Director at Amex When They Started Replacing Us with $30K Workers" [video]

#44

Post by bagacrap »

lanstin wrote: post #18

If this was about a useful part of the economy rather than financialized credit access, I would care. Paying 10x to US residents to provide a better Amex experience really doesn’t incentivize anything that is long term useful. Now when materials scientists and skilled scientific technicians are fired from US based jobs, well that is a problem. The economy in the US has fallen prey to the demands of irreality based ca…

Credit cards alter the power dynamic between customer and merchant, especially in a world where so much commerce is remote. I appreciate protection against fraudulent merchant activity, as well as the ease of use relative to alternatives (who likes carrying cash or a checkbook?). Not having to pay for a month is nice but not the reason I use credit cards.

Re: "I Was a Director at Amex When They Started Replacing Us with $30K Workers" [video]

#45

Post by xyzzy123 »

yongjik wrote: post #37
quacked wrote: post #4

The two American political parties are so perfectly shielded by their own ideological blinders to avoid any possibility of national protectionism against offshoring and outsourcing that I don't think there will ever be any kind of movement against this. The conservative base is unfriendly to foreigners and foreign cultures, and claims to prefer American-made goods and services, but will immediately guillotine any int…

Protectionism may work in some cases, but even when it works, it works by making things more expensive. People don't buy American cars because it's cheaper to make similar cars in Mexico. Fine, so let's force companies to make cars in America. It's now more expensive (otherwise we won't be importing from Mexico in the first place). You add more and more protectionism, it may get some jobs back, but the price is that…

I think all of your points are valid and I can't really see any part if your argument that isn't at least directionally correct. But then I'm left wondering:

Why is protectionism working for China?

Re: "I Was a Director at Amex When They Started Replacing Us with $30K Workers" [video]

#46

Post by bagacrap »

missedthecue wrote: post #38
josefritzishere wrote: post #31

Outside of corporate cards I've never seen an AMEX in the real world.

Are you in Europe or something? It's the most popular credit card among Gen Z and Millennials. 1% of US GDP goes through Delta co-branded Amex cards.

US data, total transactions:

Visa: $3 trillion, 52% Mastercard: $1.4 trillion, 24% American Express: $1.1 trillion, 19% Discover: 0.3$ trillion, 5%

Re: "I Was a Director at Amex When They Started Replacing Us with $30K Workers" [video]

#47

Post by quacked »

yongjik wrote: post #37
quacked wrote: post #4

The two American political parties are so perfectly shielded by their own ideological blinders to avoid any possibility of national protectionism against offshoring and outsourcing that I don't think there will ever be any kind of movement against this. The conservative base is unfriendly to foreigners and foreign cultures, and claims to prefer American-made goods and services, but will immediately guillotine any int…

Protectionism may work in some cases, but even when it works, it works by making things more expensive. People don't buy American cars because it's cheaper to make similar cars in Mexico. Fine, so let's force companies to make cars in America. It's now more expensive (otherwise we won't be importing from Mexico in the first place). You add more and more protectionism, it may get some jobs back, but the price is that…

Well, of course, I agree with you. That's why I said I don't think it would happen.

I personally wouldn't mind a world where consumer goods were much, much more expensive and difficult to acquire, even though it would mean that my life would feel harder and less wealthy than it does now.

What I don't understand is whether or not there's any path to take besides watching the country gently sail along the sunset path into oblivion. Is that it? We gave away the keys to the country's wealth generation mechanism, and now we're at the mercy of the global economy to do whatever it wants? I don't want to compete with foreign firms who can hire foreign labor to compete with me and sell on my territory, but do I simply have no choice?

Re: "I Was a Director at Amex When They Started Replacing Us with $30K Workers" [video]

#48

Post by eigenman »

yongjik wrote: post #37
quacked wrote: post #4

The two American political parties are so perfectly shielded by their own ideological blinders to avoid any possibility of national protectionism against offshoring and outsourcing that I don't think there will ever be any kind of movement against this. The conservative base is unfriendly to foreigners and foreign cultures, and claims to prefer American-made goods and services, but will immediately guillotine any int…

Protectionism may work in some cases, but even when it works, it works by making things more expensive. People don't buy American cars because it's cheaper to make similar cars in Mexico. Fine, so let's force companies to make cars in America. It's now more expensive (otherwise we won't be importing from Mexico in the first place). You add more and more protectionism, it may get some jobs back, but the price is that…

Things may get more expensive, but if more Americans can live a middle class life even accounting for the inflation of consumer goods I think that is a good tradeoff.

Re: "I Was a Director at Amex When They Started Replacing Us with $30K Workers" [video]

#49

Post by jst1fthsdys »

llmslave wrote: post #25

I worked there a long time ago. Indian VPs were taking kickbacks from consulting firms to hire their devs, it was an open secret. Whole divisions of the company are 95% Indian. I wont expose the group here, but there's a broad network of technology directors from Amex, that have all been hiring and promoting eachother for 20 years. Very tight nit networks of nepotism, in some cases, brother and sister working togethe…

This happened to the company I worked for also. Blatant corruption. One Indian guy gets appointed to VP, then almost immediately all their reporting chain is Indian. Managers are told they can only hire from some obscure Indian staffing company (that the VP has a stake in or gets bribed to use). Quality is garbage cause no self respecting Indian dev would work for them.

Zero pushback from exec level, zero acknowledgment even though it's obvious. Very deflating for employees.

Re: "I Was a Director at Amex When They Started Replacing Us with $30K Workers" [video]

#50

Post by _DeadFred_ »

dakolli wrote: post #36
gorbachev wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not extremism. It's plain old American capitalism. Both parties are being funded by the same people, so both parties play ball with the same set of funders.

Its very obvious, imo they are going to have a hard time signing young men up to fight for this country when they inevitably make everyone so poor they beg anything, even a war. But... They'll use profits and greed to alienate the working class further and further, they'll try to get us to go fight wars to capture resources for the KKKapital owners. My prediction is the only war the American people will be willing to…

“If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.” ― Ulysses S. Grant
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