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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

#441

Post by rayiner »

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?…

Jobs aren’t good or not because they government declares it so by fiat, there’s substantive differences between different kinds of jobs. “Service jobs” are bad because they typically require little skill, just a human body physically present in the U.S.

In contrast, many people will never be good riveters. They lack the strength, coordination, and stamina to do the job. Similarly, many people cannot be plumbers or electricians. Those are jobs that require intelligence and skill.

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

#442

Post by runako »

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #328
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?…

Note that the "Labor vs Capital" distinction mostly means "workers vs retirees". The reason more money goes to capital these days is not necessarily that each retiree is getting more but that in an aging population, there's more retirees so it takes more resources diverted from workers to support this larger non working population. This problem can be solved with more babies 20 years ago or more immigration of worker…

There's been a lot written on Labor vs Capital, so I will just suggest you research the topic because you are not on target here.

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

#443

Post by rayiner »

runako wrote: post #432
ctoth wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I thought about addressing this in the original post, but I want to address part of your response: > one worker today produces vastly more than one worker in 1950. Elderly care doesn't Indeed, this is a core component of Capital vs Labor issue I mentioned. Productivity increases, workers generate more value, but Capital's share of the results increases nonetheless. The change in this relationship is why I would expec…

What you’re overlooking is that productivity doesn’t increase uniformly. The low paying service sector jobs aren’t any more productive today than they were 50 years ago.

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

#444

Post by runako »

dylan604 wrote: post #240
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?…

> Historically, they were better jobs due to a strong labor movement, but that movement has been largely destroyed. There's something to be said that the labor movement was destroyed by eliminating the need for the labor. Bringing the labor back would see the labor movement return.

People still work, so this is a very bizarre comment to make.

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

#445

Post by rayiner »

almosthere wrote: post #272
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #208

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…

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 wh…

Most clothing worn in the U.S. was made in the U.S. even in the 1990s. In the 1980s it was over 70%.

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

#446

Post by rayiner »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #439
almosthere wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

Clothes are much cheaper than they were in 1960. You could bring the garment industry back to the US but you wouldnt be able to sell your products because they wouldnt be price competitive with sweatshop products.

You can just ban imports of the sweatshop products.

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

#447

Post by HDThoreaun »

cduzz wrote: post #323
nickff wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main cost driver in medical care is provider (nurse, doctor, etc.) wages, not bureaucracy or drug prices (though they're frequently cited). I have tired of posting sources for the statistics, but they are very easy to find.

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" ?

$2.3 billion is nothing in a $5 trillion system. Doctors make around $500 billion in the US. Their wages are much more significant than insurance profits.

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

#448

Post by freedomben »

brightball wrote: post #128
freedomben wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, this was one of the first things I thought of too. I remember well the jokes about Perot being crazy, frequently used to dismiss his views. I'll never forget talking with an educated Perot voter (a friend of mine) at the time and actually being confronted with the real views, not a shallow strawman, and realizing I didn't have any good answers because I hadn't actually thought about it. That was a good matura…

I had a similar experience when I learned about Ron Paul back around the 2008 election. It was also the first time I had my eyes opened to information suppression when Fox News edited some of his answers out of rebroadcasts of debates.

Same! I actually watched the debate live (on AFN) while in Iraq (deployed), and when I got home and got into discussions about it with friends I had a hard time believing we had watched the same debate. Turned out we didn't, they had watched the edited version. That was extremely eye opening

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

#449

Post by HDThoreaun »

mrguyorama wrote: post #407
bluedino wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>The United States medical industry is one of the highest paying in the world. Which the industry views as a historical accident, and now that they basically own all the hospitals and other companies, you can expect them to fix it. I would expect neutering Doctor labor power will happen soon. This admin will get a small donation or two, and the republicans will insist that letting doctors have high wages is the sole…

Medical tort is a large part of our bloated healthcare costs. The problem with these discussions is that our healthcare system is horrible and has many things going wrong, so both sides can simultaneously be right.

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

#450

Post by runako »

psunavy03 wrote: post #131
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?…

"We" have not "decided" anything other than collectively making decisions about what we are willing to pay for a given service. That ultimately is what sets wages. The only reason software development pays so well is because the market will bear it, and the market isn't some cabal of fat cats in top hats, monocles, and tails (or hoodies and Patagonia for that matter). It's the collective decisions of 330 million peop…

We make decisions through purchasing, yes.

There are also hundreds/thousands of elections annually through which we collectively set policy directions. Contrary to belief, politicians are responsive to voters over long periods of time. So over time, the policies that are continually ratified do reflect our collective choices.

And for at least the last several decades, yes we have collectively decided through our policy directions that there are classes of jobs whose holders are not deserving of material prosperity.

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