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

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411–420 of 527 posts

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

#411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You’re cherry-picking examples. Manufacturers can and do relocate the entire chain (or a super majority of it). I live outside of Greenville, SC also (previously Charleston) and when Boeing or BMW or Mercedes or Volvo bring a product out here they also bring hundreds of small time suppliers with them. Maybe the cotton for the cloth seats still come from Egypt but this is immaterial to the overall operation and the jo…

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

#412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I agree with what you are saying about Europe being better in work life balances etc. in my person opinion as well and I admit it so I am just going to write a message about the things I have been seen written by Americans in the first place/gist of them for the sake of providing a (full picture?) I wouldn't say Europe is unconcerned either. Europe has less issues than America because its collective debt feels very l…

If the metric is happiness, Europe wins.

It’s hard to measure this directly but there quantitative metrics that correlate. Suicide rates for example, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/heart-medicine-for-a...

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

#413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was't crazy, just thin-skinned and not suited for politics.

The GOP/Bushes blackmailed him into dropping out of the election by using his daughter, threatening to out her as a lesbian right before her wedding. How thick a skin do you need for that?

My comment was more in general, not about any one event. Apparently he was also a conspiracy theorist and this whole thing about an attempt to disrupt his daughters wedding seems to be one of those, and he admitted he had no evidence.

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

#414
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?…

It’s almost entirely a leverage problem. Insofar as we rely on the labor marketplace as the primary “prosperity” distribution mechanism for the majority of people the power balance between labor and capital will determine the average person’s level of prosperity. The following increase the leverage of labor: collective action, high competition between firms, near-zero (actual) unemployment rate, strong labor laws. The following increase leverage of capital: monopoly, monopsony, cartel action, high unemployment rate, weak labor laws.

Obviously the cost of converting wealth into tangible “prosperity” is an additional factor, so inflation of the cost of goods and services will factor in.

So if we wish to promote broad prosperity over ultra concentrated wealth we need to address the above factors: enforce anti-trust, break up firms as needed, promote labor protections and organizing, make taxes more progressive than regressive, make stock buybacks illegal again. The hyper mobility, political ties (with low national loyalty) of the capital class make this difficult but not impossible.

We will probably have to de-emphasize some sticky cultural memes around individual merit and everyone “deserving their fate” to accomplish the above. A surge of empathetic humanism would likely do wonders for the mental health crisis as a bonus.

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

#415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a liberal and I've lived in Texas (Austin) for 20 years. It is infuriating when I am on some liberal-oriented forum, someone says we should force Texas out of the union or whatever, and everyone cheers. ~40% of Texans didn't vote for Trump, and in absolute numbers are a greater number of liberals than most other states in their entirety ... yet my supposed fellows want to write us off. Ugly indeed.

Are you...doing to liberal-oriented forums what they do to Texas? Tarring everyone with the same brush?

I am?

Am I saying they should be disenfranchised from the country? Have I said they I have no empathy for their concerns and hope the worst for them? No.

What I said was it was infuriating when they are doing those things to the ~40% of Texans who are liberal. I didn't say it happens on all liberal forums, I'm complaining about the cases where it does happen. And please don't shift things because I said "everyone cheers" because it should be obvious it is a common phrase and doesn't literally mean I checked and every person on the forum commented.

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

#416
post #380
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…

Thank you, I learnt a new term today.

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

#417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. "Free trade between free countries" is a nice concept but unfortunately Americans have cancelled that subscription.

What countries, beyond the US, are you speaking to? I mean, I'm interested in what countries you're talking about that don't leverage tariffs and other restrictions to favor domestic industries in those countries.

Most countries had tariffs before trump, including USA. None have dumbass tariffs like trump though.

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

#418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For return to happen you need to have a creative economy, not an extractive economy. Offshoring happened for the simple, dumb reason that it's cheaper and more profitable. For all the rarara about "America", shareholder patriotism extends exactly as far as quarterly returns. If that means selling out ordinary US workers - do it. Give me the bag. What offshoring revealed is that the US is not a culturally integrated c…

I think if the wealth class wants to avoid communism and heads on pikes in the longer run, they should absolutely start to be more concerned with community and move beyond the tunnel blinders of the next quarter over long term stability. This goes for govt doing anything but working to ensure domestic production and dual/multi sourcing of essential infrastructure.

Unfortunately that's a wall street problem. I don't think wall street can be fixed, at least I don't have any clue on how it's possible to fix it outside of destroying it.

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

#419

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.

I'm talking of the Biden-era IRA here. BMW had to invest 1.7 billions in 2022 to manufacture most of its EV directly from there as you can compete in the US market without the IRA subsidies and the conditions severely limit even which parts you can import.

That's a significant shift moving from final assembly to forcing most of the supply chain to be relocated.

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

#420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Moving to the government/taxes paying for it doesn't fix that. It kinda does, bigger players have more bargaining power. There is no bigger player than the government in a universal healthcare system. Furthermore, a significant cost in healthcare is all of the bureaucracy around billing. Much of that goes away with single payer.

It would be very tough to reduce pay for doctors and other staff. The United States medical industry is one of the highest paying in the world.

Wages for doctors and staff are not the cause of high medical bills.

The US spends something like $4.9 trillion dollars on medical care, and employs around 1 million physicians, 4.5 million nurses, or 9.8 million health care workers in total [1].

If this was paid out in wages the average health care worker would be make almost $500k/year. Compare that to the wage of the average doctor at $335k/year [2] or average nurse at under $100k/year. There is a lot of money in medical care that is not going to wages.

[1]https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/04/who-are-our-h...

[2]https://www1.salary.com/Doctor-Salary.html

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