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I don't really see what the problem is with offshoring. If other people elsewhere want to work for cheaper, then it's fair competition. It's not like protection

I don't really see what the problem is with offshoring. If other people elsewhere want to work for cheaper, then it's fair competition. It's not like protectionism would work long term anyways. And in this particular case, Vietnam is more aligned with the US than China, geopolitically, so this makes a lot of sense.

azinman2 4y ago
Because you slowly shift your economy out from underneath you and effectively give it away. In the process you lose the ability to have any of these core competencies yourself. In the end what’s the point of having cheaper products if no one has a job to buy them.
- pishpash 4y ago
  But they don't need jobs to buy them, they get dollars printed for them to buy them. If one day the dollar can't be printed without tanking itself, they will also have the jobs that allow them to buy the products.
- sfvegandude 4y ago
  > In the process you lose the ability to have any of these core competencies yourself. Nonsense. The US could obtain the core competencies themselves and indeed will as globalization winds down. People will never stop coming to the US for opportunity.
  - AYBABTME 4y ago
    > People will never stop coming to the US for opportunity. Is true _as long as the US continues to understand this_ and doesn't change its stance on immigration and business and open markets. The US will win as long as it's the country where the best of this world are invited and able to come and do their best work. On the other hand, I don't see China having any chance at beating the US on that front anytime soon. Mandarin is too hard to learn for immigrants, and the racism and lack of freedom is entirely unpalatable to most immigrants. Aside from finance types moving to Shanghai, I'm not sure who would want to move to China if they have the opportunity to move to the US instead. (well, I know many do, but let's just say the quantities are incomparable)
    - dirtyid 4y ago
      > beating the US on that front anytime soon Current trends suggest otherwise, see PRC rapidly catching up and leading R&D and innovation indexes controlled by citations or quality in the last few years. > quantities are incomparable If anything US is at an substantial quantity disadvantage and slight to modest quality advantage. While US does absorb _some_ of the best global talent, those are also subsect of best with resources to go to US, and capped by immigration to around 700k, not all whom are relevant STEM talent for high tech industrial competition. Meanwhile rate of PRC domestic STEM talent generation is about 4-5x (rough estimate generously assuming all US immigration is STEM) of US domestic highereducation + immigration is pulling talent even accounting for outbound PRC brain drain. Yes, US has a bigger pool to draw from but their bucket is also smaller. US was projected to have like 3+ million STEM job gap in coming years, while PRC is generating so much talent that there's record unemploment. Which is obviously not good but puts the numbers in perspective - PRC is producing roughly as much STEM grads as all OECD nations combined, while geopolitical tensions is helping PRC retain more of that talent. Other considerations is that recent trend of PRC R&D and tech catchup is result of highered reforms set decades ago. PRC is still in process of building talent and institution base compared to relative mature western R&D system. IMO trends last few years show it's entirely possible for PRC to be competitive or overtake US in strategic high tech/talent industries in medium/long term, if not the entire US aligned block who are small subsect of OECD countries. But they I think state of geoeconomics will limit their market access and each will end up leading different blocs.
      - AYBABTME 4y ago
        I don't doubt what you're saying, although I'm not sure about the validity of the data derived on count of publications, since that's easily gamed. But what I'm saying is about immigration. I really doubt that the PRC will attract much STEM immigration in the future, at least in comparison to the US. As far as I can tell, the few dedicated folks who choose to emigrate to China do so despite an uphill battle and end up with limited job opportunities. The PRC will have a large internal talent pool to draw from, but will not attract foreign and diverse talent... at least that's my hunch, and mostly because of (1) hostile policies to foreigners (2) language barrier - Mandarin is much harder to learn than English (3) cultural barrier - Chinese culture is old and more self-centered than US's young, outward facing and constantly reinventing culture, and (4) having a bad reputation for personal freedoms and judicial fairness. So sure, PRC isn't near its final state in term of STEM talent. But I think despite its domestic talent pool, it will not benefit from the diversity of talent that the US will continue to benefit from. And ultimately, 1.3B people is a large pool to draw talent from, but it's not as large as the other 6.4B people. I do find this topic fascinating. I'm reading a book interview with Lee Kuan Yew which I find is making me reevaluate my prior beliefs. I'm more bullish on China than US on the long term, but LKY's insight were convincing and making a bull case for the US.
licebmi__at__ 4y ago
Usually nobody has problems with offshoring unless it’s their job that’s being offshored.
chaosbutters314 4y ago
2 words: national security. as the world's police and adult, we have to be self sufficient in food, tech, defense, resources, etc
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  > As the world’s adult Led by an octogenarian who replaced a septuagenarian man-child.
- scarface74 4y ago
  And good luck with that with China holding so much of our debt. Military leaders in the US for decades has been warning politicians that our debt is one of our biggest threats.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    China holds 3.2% of the US's outstanding debt[0]. I'm not particularly worried about that angle. Even if China owned an order of magnitude more, what practical benefits would that confer? [0] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080615/china-owns-us-debt-how-much.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080615/china...
  - r00fus 4y ago
    The number one holder of US debt is not China. It's US investors and own citizens from Social Security "entitlements" (misnomer: they are fully funded by our mandatory contributions). https://datalab.usaspending.gov/americas-finance-guide/debt/analysis/ https://datalab.usaspending.gov/americas-finance-guide/debt/...
  - dan-robertson 4y ago
    China holds US debt denominated in dollars, which is different from eg holding Sri Lankan debt denominated in dollars. In the US case, the government can issue more treasuries to cover payments or if things are dire they can just print more dollars. Sri Lanka can’t make new dollars so they need to get them through trade and if they have an imbalance there it can be very hard. I think it isn’t really very relevant to think about China holding US government debt because it isn’t like they will call up the bailiffs or otherwise be able to exercise control over the US because of that debt. I think it would be basically equivalent to say that China holds US dollars which doesn’t feel particularly concerning to me.
president 4y ago
Nobody does until it affects them personally or unless they have some compassion for others in their country who don't have the same opportunities and skillset as you. Many of the drugged out people on the street without homes or a future could have been hard working factory workers but wealthy people thought it would be better to save a few bucks and boost their own paychecks by offshoring.
- AYBABTME 4y ago
  Personally I think it's entirely fair if someone in another country is allowed to compete on the world market and provide a service for cheaper. It makes economical sense for them as they'll improve their living standards by quite a lot. So you could say that I have compassion for everyone else in the world who isn't born a US citizen and needs to scrape by from much diminished opportunities to begin with. The offshoring country indeed loses jobs and the jobless need to handle this situation. Some will end up drugged out in the street. I'd argue that these drugged off people aren't that much the fault of corporate leaders who cut costs by offshoring. I'd say the drugged off people are jointly responsible for their fate, along with governmental policies that offer no social net while also not wanting to take any action to prevent spiraling delinquency. If you look around the world, not every person who loses their job ends up drugged off and homeless. In many places, people are quite poor and don't end up this way. Most people lose their jobs and turn around and figure something out. And then some people can't deal with the hit and don't have what it takes to handle and end up drugged out in the streets. There's some self responsibility going on here that allows this to go down this path. And there's some social policy at play too. In another country, you could only fall so far down before something makes it harder for you to go further down. Either there's strong social nets, or there's just strong anti-drugs laws, or all kinds of debatable policies.. but many of these policies help prevent people getting so low that they can't come back up. Why is the poor trade worker in VN, living in a metal shed, able to handle abject poverty with dignity, and then get an offshored job and thrive... but the US worker loses their job, has 10x better economical opportunities than the VN worker but ends up drugged out in the street. This isn't a real argument as there are people heading down a self-destructive path everywhere in the world. But I can't help but think that a lot of self-pity has to do with one's own perceived expectations for higher standards and inability to accept loss. Ultimately, I can't help but think it's an infantilizing argument to say that the hard working factory workers who become junkies, are junkies because someone offshored their job. Because this supposes that they had no agency into doing anything about it, they were doomed to become junkies. This also supposes that a variety of things could have easily knocked them off the good path. That they were fragile and had no recourse or control over their destiny. If it wasn't a CEO offshoring their job, it would have been some other hurdle. And I don't buy this, I don't think the average hard working factory worker is such a fragile person, whose entirely at the mercy and requires the protection of a patronizing CEO.
qaq 4y ago
Problem with offshoring of high tech is that a big chunk of US economy is on the hook to a few authoritarian governments not really aligned with US or the west.
willcipriano 4y ago
We offshore, but only the pleb stuff. God forbid you want to get a degree in a foreign country, or import medicine, or a doctor. Ask to do any of those and it's protectionism all day long.
- AYBABTME 4y ago
  I think it's a pendulum. Wait some decades and centuries and that stuff too will get "offshored" elsewhere. And then move between areas, and so on. It used to be that the Arab world was where all the science and math was done. Now it's the bottom of the food chain. It used to be that the Britts were cheaper and faster at building ships, displacing the Dutch's and becoming the world's leader. Now they can't build anything competitively. It used to be that China was the source of most technology, while Europe was stuck in feudal wars. Then they were outpaced by industrializing nations. Now they're mostly manufacturing and develop limited intellectual property. It used to be that Americans studied in Europe to get a proper education. Now the US has the best universities in the world. I think resistance to offshoring is a natural reflex that's entirely futile.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
55555 4y ago
A lot of people here are saying the US and Vietnam are close now. Can anyone fill me in? Last I was aware, there was no extradition, and a museum about the War of American Aggression, etc. I wasn’t aware we even had functioning diplomacy with Vietnam. I guess I should have though because Obama went and ate noodles there with Anthony Bourdain. Serious comment. I thought they hated us since the North won the war.
- AYBABTME 4y ago
  Well, not exactly allied, but China is a much more real and immediate threat to Viet Nam than the US are. Viet Nam isn't going to be a strategic threat to the US any day, and they have aligned interests in the South China Sea (East Sea for VN). The communist government in VN isn't that "bad" all things considered (heavy quotes). The country could grow in prominence and never become big enough to threaten the US's dominant position. VN and China have been in constant conflict over the sea they share, and their respective commercial and government ships have been in low intensity skirmishes. VN wants to have access to the seas and be able to extract petrol from there. China wants a clear frontyard to be able to protect their economy and trade. VN is too small to do much about China's navy, but with help from the US, it's a different story. In addition, China did try to invade VN right after the US-VN war, and VN remains highly suspicious of China. Hystorically, VN was a vassal state to China (like Korea) and given the trajectory of things and how China talks to their neighbours, it sure sounds like they plan on treating VN (and everyone else) as vassal states once again if and when they come back to world dominance. From the US side of things, shifting manufacturing to VN is a way to divest from China. And VN workers/trades are quite skilled, so the products themselves are not bad at all. So while the VN communist party can't just erase their origin story out from one day to the next and remove all the anti-US propaganda, the geopolitics reality is that VN and the US are naturally aligned against China. And similarly, the VN war was a huge cultural shock for the US and you can't just erase that from people's mind. But then pragmatism is that modern day US and VN's interest are a lot more aligned than they're misaligned. In fact aside for the whole history (conflict), political system (capitalist/communist) and governance stuff (freedom & democracy/authoritarian and single party), I think the US and VN don't have much in term of hurdles. The VN population mostly likes US folks (ignoring drunken bravado) and the US has a large VN diaspora and a guilt trip about the VN war.

azinman2 4y ago

Because you slowly shift your economy out from underneath you and effectively give it away. In the process you lose the ability to have any of these core competencies yourself. In the end what’s the point of having cheaper products if no one has a job to buy them.

pishpash 4y ago
But they don't need jobs to buy them, they get dollars printed for them to buy them. If one day the dollar can't be printed without tanking itself, they will also have the jobs that allow them to buy the products.
sfvegandude 4y ago
> In the process you lose the ability to have any of these core competencies yourself. Nonsense. The US could obtain the core competencies themselves and indeed will as globalization winds down. People will never stop coming to the US for opportunity.
- AYBABTME 4y ago
  > People will never stop coming to the US for opportunity. Is true _as long as the US continues to understand this_ and doesn't change its stance on immigration and business and open markets. The US will win as long as it's the country where the best of this world are invited and able to come and do their best work. On the other hand, I don't see China having any chance at beating the US on that front anytime soon. Mandarin is too hard to learn for immigrants, and the racism and lack of freedom is entirely unpalatable to most immigrants. Aside from finance types moving to Shanghai, I'm not sure who would want to move to China if they have the opportunity to move to the US instead. (well, I know many do, but let's just say the quantities are incomparable)
  - dirtyid 4y ago
    > beating the US on that front anytime soon Current trends suggest otherwise, see PRC rapidly catching up and leading R&D and innovation indexes controlled by citations or quality in the last few years. > quantities are incomparable If anything US is at an substantial quantity disadvantage and slight to modest quality advantage. While US does absorb _some_ of the best global talent, those are also subsect of best with resources to go to US, and capped by immigration to around 700k, not all whom are relevant STEM talent for high tech industrial competition. Meanwhile rate of PRC domestic STEM talent generation is about 4-5x (rough estimate generously assuming all US immigration is STEM) of US domestic highereducation + immigration is pulling talent even accounting for outbound PRC brain drain. Yes, US has a bigger pool to draw from but their bucket is also smaller. US was projected to have like 3+ million STEM job gap in coming years, while PRC is generating so much talent that there's record unemploment. Which is obviously not good but puts the numbers in perspective - PRC is producing roughly as much STEM grads as all OECD nations combined, while geopolitical tensions is helping PRC retain more of that talent. Other considerations is that recent trend of PRC R&D and tech catchup is result of highered reforms set decades ago. PRC is still in process of building talent and institution base compared to relative mature western R&D system. IMO trends last few years show it's entirely possible for PRC to be competitive or overtake US in strategic high tech/talent industries in medium/long term, if not the entire US aligned block who are small subsect of OECD countries. But they I think state of geoeconomics will limit their market access and each will end up leading different blocs.
    - AYBABTME 4y ago
      I don't doubt what you're saying, although I'm not sure about the validity of the data derived on count of publications, since that's easily gamed. But what I'm saying is about immigration. I really doubt that the PRC will attract much STEM immigration in the future, at least in comparison to the US. As far as I can tell, the few dedicated folks who choose to emigrate to China do so despite an uphill battle and end up with limited job opportunities. The PRC will have a large internal talent pool to draw from, but will not attract foreign and diverse talent... at least that's my hunch, and mostly because of (1) hostile policies to foreigners (2) language barrier - Mandarin is much harder to learn than English (3) cultural barrier - Chinese culture is old and more self-centered than US's young, outward facing and constantly reinventing culture, and (4) having a bad reputation for personal freedoms and judicial fairness. So sure, PRC isn't near its final state in term of STEM talent. But I think despite its domestic talent pool, it will not benefit from the diversity of talent that the US will continue to benefit from. And ultimately, 1.3B people is a large pool to draw talent from, but it's not as large as the other 6.4B people. I do find this topic fascinating. I'm reading a book interview with Lee Kuan Yew which I find is making me reevaluate my prior beliefs. I'm more bullish on China than US on the long term, but LKY's insight were convincing and making a bull case for the US.

licebmi__at__ 4y ago

Usually nobody has problems with offshoring unless it’s their job that’s being offshored.

chaosbutters314 4y ago

2 words: national security. as the world's police and adult, we have to be self sufficient in food, tech, defense, resources, etc

spaceman_2020 4y ago
> As the world’s adult Led by an octogenarian who replaced a septuagenarian man-child.
scarface74 4y ago
And good luck with that with China holding so much of our debt. Military leaders in the US for decades has been warning politicians that our debt is one of our biggest threats.
- kelnos 4y ago
  China holds 3.2% of the US's outstanding debt[0]. I'm not particularly worried about that angle. Even if China owned an order of magnitude more, what practical benefits would that confer? [0] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080615/china-owns-us-debt-how-much.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080615/china...
- r00fus 4y ago
  The number one holder of US debt is not China. It's US investors and own citizens from Social Security "entitlements" (misnomer: they are fully funded by our mandatory contributions). https://datalab.usaspending.gov/americas-finance-guide/debt/analysis/ https://datalab.usaspending.gov/americas-finance-guide/debt/...
- dan-robertson 4y ago
  China holds US debt denominated in dollars, which is different from eg holding Sri Lankan debt denominated in dollars. In the US case, the government can issue more treasuries to cover payments or if things are dire they can just print more dollars. Sri Lanka can’t make new dollars so they need to get them through trade and if they have an imbalance there it can be very hard. I think it isn’t really very relevant to think about China holding US government debt because it isn’t like they will call up the bailiffs or otherwise be able to exercise control over the US because of that debt. I think it would be basically equivalent to say that China holds US dollars which doesn’t feel particularly concerning to me.

president 4y ago

Nobody does until it affects them personally or unless they have some compassion for others in their country who don't have the same opportunities and skillset as you. Many of the drugged out people on the street without homes or a future could have been hard working factory workers but wealthy people thought it would be better to save a few bucks and boost their own paychecks by offshoring.

AYBABTME 4y ago
Personally I think it's entirely fair if someone in another country is allowed to compete on the world market and provide a service for cheaper. It makes economical sense for them as they'll improve their living standards by quite a lot. So you could say that I have compassion for everyone else in the world who isn't born a US citizen and needs to scrape by from much diminished opportunities to begin with. The offshoring country indeed loses jobs and the jobless need to handle this situation. Some will end up drugged out in the street. I'd argue that these drugged off people aren't that much the fault of corporate leaders who cut costs by offshoring. I'd say the drugged off people are jointly responsible for their fate, along with governmental policies that offer no social net while also not wanting to take any action to prevent spiraling delinquency. If you look around the world, not every person who loses their job ends up drugged off and homeless. In many places, people are quite poor and don't end up this way. Most people lose their jobs and turn around and figure something out. And then some people can't deal with the hit and don't have what it takes to handle and end up drugged out in the streets. There's some self responsibility going on here that allows this to go down this path. And there's some social policy at play too. In another country, you could only fall so far down before something makes it harder for you to go further down. Either there's strong social nets, or there's just strong anti-drugs laws, or all kinds of debatable policies.. but many of these policies help prevent people getting so low that they can't come back up. Why is the poor trade worker in VN, living in a metal shed, able to handle abject poverty with dignity, and then get an offshored job and thrive... but the US worker loses their job, has 10x better economical opportunities than the VN worker but ends up drugged out in the street. This isn't a real argument as there are people heading down a self-destructive path everywhere in the world. But I can't help but think that a lot of self-pity has to do with one's own perceived expectations for higher standards and inability to accept loss. Ultimately, I can't help but think it's an infantilizing argument to say that the hard working factory workers who become junkies, are junkies because someone offshored their job. Because this supposes that they had no agency into doing anything about it, they were doomed to become junkies. This also supposes that a variety of things could have easily knocked them off the good path. That they were fragile and had no recourse or control over their destiny. If it wasn't a CEO offshoring their job, it would have been some other hurdle. And I don't buy this, I don't think the average hard working factory worker is such a fragile person, whose entirely at the mercy and requires the protection of a patronizing CEO.

qaq 4y ago

Problem with offshoring of high tech is that a big chunk of US economy is on the hook to a few authoritarian governments not really aligned with US or the west.

willcipriano 4y ago

We offshore, but only the pleb stuff. God forbid you want to get a degree in a foreign country, or import medicine, or a doctor. Ask to do any of those and it's protectionism all day long.

AYBABTME 4y ago
I think it's a pendulum. Wait some decades and centuries and that stuff too will get "offshored" elsewhere. And then move between areas, and so on. It used to be that the Arab world was where all the science and math was done. Now it's the bottom of the food chain. It used to be that the Britts were cheaper and faster at building ships, displacing the Dutch's and becoming the world's leader. Now they can't build anything competitively. It used to be that China was the source of most technology, while Europe was stuck in feudal wars. Then they were outpaced by industrializing nations. Now they're mostly manufacturing and develop limited intellectual property. It used to be that Americans studied in Europe to get a proper education. Now the US has the best universities in the world. I think resistance to offshoring is a natural reflex that's entirely futile.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

55555 4y ago

A lot of people here are saying the US and Vietnam are close now. Can anyone fill me in? Last I was aware, there was no extradition, and a museum about the War of American Aggression, etc. I wasn’t aware we even had functioning diplomacy with Vietnam. I guess I should have though because Obama went and ate noodles there with Anthony Bourdain. Serious comment. I thought they hated us since the North won the war.

AYBABTME 4y ago
Well, not exactly allied, but China is a much more real and immediate threat to Viet Nam than the US are. Viet Nam isn't going to be a strategic threat to the US any day, and they have aligned interests in the South China Sea (East Sea for VN). The communist government in VN isn't that "bad" all things considered (heavy quotes). The country could grow in prominence and never become big enough to threaten the US's dominant position. VN and China have been in constant conflict over the sea they share, and their respective commercial and government ships have been in low intensity skirmishes. VN wants to have access to the seas and be able to extract petrol from there. China wants a clear frontyard to be able to protect their economy and trade. VN is too small to do much about China's navy, but with help from the US, it's a different story. In addition, China did try to invade VN right after the US-VN war, and VN remains highly suspicious of China. Hystorically, VN was a vassal state to China (like Korea) and given the trajectory of things and how China talks to their neighbours, it sure sounds like they plan on treating VN (and everyone else) as vassal states once again if and when they come back to world dominance. From the US side of things, shifting manufacturing to VN is a way to divest from China. And VN workers/trades are quite skilled, so the products themselves are not bad at all. So while the VN communist party can't just erase their origin story out from one day to the next and remove all the anti-US propaganda, the geopolitics reality is that VN and the US are naturally aligned against China. And similarly, the VN war was a huge cultural shock for the US and you can't just erase that from people's mind. But then pragmatism is that modern day US and VN's interest are a lot more aligned than they're misaligned. In fact aside for the whole history (conflict), political system (capitalist/communist) and governance stuff (freedom & democracy/authoritarian and single party), I think the US and VN don't have much in term of hurdles. The VN population mostly likes US folks (ignoring drunken bravado) and the US has a large VN diaspora and a guilt trip about the VN war.