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For many years, FAANGs and the likes have made billions across the world without hiring any significant amount of people in nearly all of those economies. Zero profit for the non-US countries. Take a random one, Denmark. Google and Apple sure have been making great money off of the Danes. What has Denmark gotten in return for it? Nothing. It's all gone towards (generally US) investor returns, and US salaries.
Sure, make it illegal for US companies to hire boatloads of people abroad. At the same time, other countries should ban those US companies from operating there.
If Google is making money off of people in e.g. Denmark, it's probably also giving them something that is really valuable to them, like access to the Google search engine.
So I don't actually think Denmark would be better off by banning doing business with Google, Facebook, Netflix, etc.
It absolutely does not [1]. This kind of blanket statement is on the level of "market intervention is *always bad, the free market solves everything". Wishful Raegan-era thinking.
Google hired some VM specialists who worked out of their Aarhus office. I think they used their research for Android.
I don't know if Google still does this, but we have (or had) a large number of people working on CS problems which they could use working at our universities they could attract.
And then compare it to "what if Google wouldn't operate at all in Denmark", how much jobs that would create.
The great news is this isn't a hypothetical that can be waved away with "we don't know", because we have a golden example in South Korea, where the 10+ year delay that Google had in gaining market share has resulted in tens of thousands of local jobs that otherwise wouldn't exist.
Could every country have its own Google a la South Korea? Maybe not. But plenty could.
Half the interview (ideally) measures technical competence. The other half is "would I like to work with this person?" I don't know what you're like in person, but if I looked you up and found your HN comment history, you'd be a no hire. Sorry.
Bitterness? Have you considered that you're reading my posts wrong? Having a different political opinion than you does not equate to bitterness. No - I'm not bitter at all.
And as I've made quite clear on linkedin, I want nothing to do with an employer who tries to strong arm me out of my freedom of speech and expression, so I wouldn't work for the likes of you.
> I don't know what you're like in person
Correct you don't. I'm awesome.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42533933
"Having worked for a startup and lost my job to remote workers in a foreign country because they were cheaper and being told "we can hire 3 or 4 of them for the price of you" has left a bitter taste in my mouth."
But again - if someone wants to pass on a hire because of that post, be my guest. I wouldn't want to work for such a petty individual.
> not my fault
These are bitter remarks and giant red flags personality wise. Take responsibility for your own life.
...also a little socially awkward? Why use my last name in this forum? Not that it bothers me; I deliberately maintain a public profile. But the convention here is to use each other's usernames, and you had to click through at least a couple links to see my name. Do we know each other? I presume not, or you would have used my first name.
There's something a little strange about it; either you aren't picking up on community social conventions, or you're deliberately trying to break them. It's just a small and almost insignificant data point, but if I had to take a totally wild guess, these sorts of subtle social issues are what interviewers are picking up on.
I recall holding down many jobs for many consecutive years and being let go of only one. I related why I was let go: the owner was able to hire cheaper foriegn labor - were you aware of this? The president said in 2016 that hiring h1b just to save a buck is something he would permanently end.
Here is a link to his statements. Were you aware of this as well?
https://x.com/JackPosobiec/status/1873172920396382490
I fail to see a contrarian attitude in this thread, but I do see internet trolls who smell blood and are attempting to bait me into a fight that won't happen. Good luck.
Offering one's advice when another hasn't requested it is condescending, especially when one knows absolutely nothing about the other person.
If you wish to imagine me as a bitter person sitting around cursing immigrants for my woes, so be it. You'll be wrong and dumber for it, but I'm not going to waste my time trying to convince some idiot otherwise.
I have nothing to hide. I shared this whole post on LinkedIn. I don't care if a potential employer reads it.
Just to reiterate: they don't like it? I don't care. I like working with people who aren't petty and obtuse. Having no job is better than walking on eggshells and being strong armed out of a political opinion by trolls like Jeff under the guise of "creative criticism".
> Furthermore, in the last two years I experienced two layoffs. In both situations it was white males let go in favor of Indian and KZ foreigners
I’ve had 10 jobs over almost 30 years and I’ve been laid off twice - once when a company got acquired and once this year and I got Amazoned last year. It’s never taken me more than a month to get a job once I started looking.
I kept my skill set and resume up to date, always prepared to interview and I have a great network.
Yes I am a minority and I’m damn good at what I do - strategic cloud consulting with an emphasis on application development. Yes I’ve worked for a FAANG (direct hire).
Trust me, companies didn’t just hire me either at BigTech or a strategic hire at startups or to lead million dollar+ projects because I’m Black.
Interestingly, the current issue isn't so much getting hired as it is getting an interview at all. This has started after the rise of chatgpt. No one has bothered to ask me what the issue is and has instead jumped to conclusions which I'm personally quite entertained by. As I said in my original post: my situation is unique.
(Edited some words for clarification)
My mom was a well connected school teacher where I grew up and my dad a factory worker (both still living and just celebrated their 56th anniversary).
I was programming in assembly language on my Apple //e in 1986 in sixth grade.
The tech environment is one of the most egalitarian industries. I have never seen signs of systemic discrimination.
Surprisingly enough, the only reports I’ve heard about widespread discrimination are by Indians against other Indians…
https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/caste-...
I'm not surprised by the stats you shared. The most discrimination and workplace harassment / bullying I've recieved is from white people. Me and the Indians, Russians and black people I've worked with got along great -- and some of the white people of course.
Should US employees do support for Indian companies during our midnight too? I'm being honest, I can probably work for a few pennies since I was laid off months ago. Anything will help keep me going at this point.
Furthermore, most of the hardware that you use directly or indirectly, wasn’t manufactured in the US. The globalization trend of companies, job markets, consumers, and supply chains being spread around the world will likely only grow. Most things are internationally interdependent nowadays, there’s no good reason for why the job market should be any different.
Absolutely I would.
> What % of your paycheck are you willing to donate to being pro America?
This is a tu quoque logical fallacy. I'll cross that bridge if and when I come to it, but I can tell you that I'd rather take a pay cut than hire a foreigner.
Why should it matter if they also open an office in your country?
For clarity, I took the discussion as being about software, as physical goods (including hardware) are an entirely different beast which my points don't necessarily apply to.
Do the least amount of work that’ll get you as much money as possible and always look for a better offer.
That is, obviously, a false dichotomy
These are people hired locally within their respective countries by local corporations owned by holdings in the US. How can you make it illegal for a company to hire people legally in other countries through their legal non-US incorporations?
Basically, if an unemployed American that can write React code, that person should have a job before any H1B (or remotely hired person) at the same level, same remoteness status, etc... If all the Americans are hired, then H1B levels (and remote work Indians) may rise again.
I might have a larger shot at getting a job right now if I literally move to India and get in with one of these programming shops. Of course I won't participate in the night-time scamming operation of US grandparents.
By the way I'm half Indian
to reiterate what i've stated throughout this thread: passing up US workers in favor of hiring foreigners should incur heavy penalties. There is no shortage of American workers. If a foreigner wants to work for an American company, they should get a greencard and work in America.
If a company has a foreign office, of course it makes sense to hire people in that country, but that wasn't stipulated in the comment I replied to. Many companies are NOT based in foreign lands and still hire foreigners remotely, passing up Americans in the process, because those foreigners are dirt cheap by comparison. This should not be allowed.
1. Hiring a company for a service
2. Hiring a contractor who invoices through their foreign company
3. Having an office in that country
Which one would you make illegal? I don’t even understand what the rule would be to defend or support here, in practice. Companies in the US cannot hire services from foreign countries?
I've made it abundantly clear that I am against this practice. H-1B is the current hot button policy that everyone is discussing. I would also like to see all other programs and policies involving the replacement of American workers with cheaper foriegn workers reformed, replaced, or repealed.
well..right now, it seems that Trump is siding with Elon on this. This hit the news today:
https://apnews.com/article/trump-maga-immigration-visas-musk...
Also remember - Trump doesn't need the votes anymore from his base. He could pivot on all of his promises or some of these things or make just enough of a visible attempt to give a perception of things are being changed. It wouldn't make a difference. He's said a lot of things and made a lot of promises since being elected the first time. Very few things actually trickled down to the average person. At least nothing that was a lasting change couldn't be undone by the next administration due to bad policy. I say this as someone who voted for him. (I knew what who I was voting for though and had very little expectations of change.)
I doubt it.
If you want to live in a society where your life has value beyond that which a market rapidly converging on slave labor and AI can extract from you, I guess maybe move to a country where "socialism" isn't a dirty word.
And I guess the petite-bougeousie of the American tech class is getting a rude awakening that they're just labor after all, and thus not entitled to eat from the table they set.
Market incentives are influenced by policies the US gov sets, so globalist capitalists monopolizing US markets is the inevitable result of US gov policies. Ever heard of Anti-trust laws? They could be updated for the global economy any time.
Yes, theoretically, the US could pursue its own Sakoku as a suicidal policy of "nativist" self-reliance but the premise that they ever would is ridiculous. I know people in this thread couldn't care less, but policy is set by people who actually do.
Americans can compete with Indian, Chinese and Mexican labor when they're willing to work for Indian, Chinese and Mexican wages, end of.
In fact, until passage of the Hart-Celler Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the US was under strict immigration restrictions established by the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924. During that time we assimilated the Ellis Islanders, beat the Great Depression, out-produced the Axis to win World War 2, split the atom, rebuilt Europe and Japan, electrified the country, fed the world with our Green Revolution, invented the transistor, cured polio, invented the integrated circuit, and built the Empire State Building, Golden Gate Bridge, Hoover Dam and interstate highway system. Cheap tech labor benefits a small club of men at the top, such as Elon and paulg. It is not essential to the success or prosperity of America or the American people.
An America where children must study 24/7 and work 80 hours a week as slavish, soulless drones to compete with indentured servants from every corner of the world is not a country I want to live in. It's not the country I was promised nor the future I voted for, and I'm going to fight to make sure it doesn't happen.
To be clear, you're implying that all of these things, specifically, were the result of American anti-immigration policies and high wages for American workers?
Because I'm pretty sure America needed plenty of foreign help to split the atom, and that socialist programs like the WPA built much of the infrastructure you're talking about, and the interstate highways were built by government contractors and prison labor. And Americans may have invented the transistor, but the patents originated with Canadian, Austrian and German research. Of course, the cheap labor of manufacturing in China and elsewhere in Asia is responsible for the ubiquity and low cost of just about all electronics sold in the US. Almost everyone has something made by Sony or Panasonic, but no one has a Zenith TV anymore.
The "Green Revolution"... depended entirely on the cooperation of foreign governments, investment and labor. The US absolutely did not "feed the world with our Green Revolution," just as the US did not "win World War 2."
>Cheap tech labor benefits a small club of men at the top, such as Elon and paulg. It is not essential to the success or prosperity of America or the American people.
What's funny is that we're here on a board built for and primarily used by Silicon Valley tech people who make six figure salaries on the back of that labor, from H1-B visaholders to the South Americans cleaning their toilets down to the child slaves mining rare earth elements in the Congo, and were fine with it up until someone talked about them the way they talk about the foreign help.
And let's not pretend tech was ever about the success or prosperity of America or the American people. Ya'll got in it because you wanted to exit a billionaire like Zuckerberg or Musk with a little effort and a bullshit gimmick, while someone whose name you can't bother even trying to pronounce serves you a catered lunch at the commissary.
Yeah, sorry, you're just another one of the tomatoes.
>An America where children must study 24/7 and work 80 hours a week as slavish, soulless drones to compete with indentured servants from every corner of the world is not a country I want to live in.
Stop voting for the people who keep making it worse, then. Did you really think the globalist billionaire who never worked a real job and rarely paid his (often foreign) employees was a hero of the working man?
The whole point of my comment was that such truly high-skilled immigrants were able to arrive and thrive during the term of the Johnson-Reed Act. The rest of your critique on that point is ill-founded and irrelevant.
>Almost everyone has something made by Sony or Panasonic, but no one has a Zenith TV anymore.
Yes, tariffs will be needed to reshore those industries.
>The "Green Revolution"... depended entirely on the cooperation of foreign governments, investment and labor. The US absolutely did not "feed the world with our Green Revolution," just as the US did not "win World War 2."
You'd do well to read a biography of Norman Borlaug. He did a lot more than repackage Haber-Bosch. American charity during the 1960s and 70s is the only reason tens if not hundreds of millions of Indians are alive today. Whether that's ultimately in America's best interest remains to be seen.
The sweeping socialist polemics and corny "y'all" was very funny, thanks for the laugh.
Habor-bosch fed the world, green rev was a gift of that refined process to a country that couldn't feed itself.
>And Americans may have invented the transistor, but the patents originated with Canadian, Austrian and German research
which of course would have been useless without boolean logic, invented by an american.
Most of your argument is a straw man against america the narrative. The US civil engineer corps developed the most useful part of our infrastructure - the hydroelectric dams. Historically, I don't think the designs of critical national infrastructure was outsourced to immigrants to save a few bucks because to do so would be shortsighted and irresponsible.
>you voted wrong
as if there was a real choice offered and people should be assumed to have voted wrong and held accountable.
Because they're competing against Mexicans who will do the job at that wage, and probably automation and AI, and there is no universe in which American companies simply decide to spend more on local labor without commensurate benefit. It isn't any American employers' problem that the market has determined the value of US labor to be less than the cost of living, and not worth investing in.
I say that sincerely- losing your job suks.
Of course the root of the problem, for you and steel workers, US that American consumers care more about money than where something is sourced. They buy the cheapest car, cheapest steel, cheapest computer etc. So to survive companies have to reduce costs, which inevitably means off-shoring.
Tarifs are a solution, but are simpler to do on physical imports than on remote labor. Basically though they help by driving up local prices, allowing say American Steel to compete.
Yes, prices going up (inflation) is a side effect, and yes salaries have to remain fixed (else the import is still cheaper) so disposal income, and hence standard of living have to come down. That's a feature not a bug.
Alternatively taxes could be slashed, requiring massive reductions on spending on military, social security and Medicare. That would mean some job losses in the military-industrial sector, but frankly that's probably a good thing.
Social Security and Medicare are unpopular to cut, but its easily done, and a necessity to make significant cuts. I think the electorate has given a mandate to the govt to do this, do I expect they'll do it. (Trump campaigned on this, so its pretty much what people clearly want.)
I know attempts at American isolationist policies have not worked in the past, but I expect it'll be different this time.
The alternative to this approach would be higher taxes on companies and the mega rich - along with reduced military spending and increases to the social security net. That's the route most of the other countries took, but how many billionaires can Poland boast?
Sure they're sucking up programmer jobs, but there aren't too many companies complaining about that.
No he didn't campaign on this. It's not easily done either. You're talking about people's families who paid into the system and were promised to be paid, and their kids certainly aren't going to be paying those bills when nobody is doing great financially speaking.
Maybe the government's promises can't be kept, but the politician that voluntarily casts the elderly into destitution or drastically increases taxes on workers is not going to last long.
Can you please point me to Trump campaigning on this? I heard him say the exact opposite repeatedly in his speeches at his rallies.
He claims no affiliation to Project 25 (but then hires all those planners into key positions), claims to be pro-worker, but eliminates labor protections and gives tax cuts only to rich people.
The American public are smart. They are not easily duped. They understand that when he says Social Security and Medicare are bring left alone, he intends to cut them.
They understand that campaigning on fiscal responsibility means widening the deficit. They understand that improving health care means taking it away and giving health care companies more profit.
This is the future he campaigned on - this is the future they voted for. This is no a politician changing between campaign and office. His intentions, interests, and affiliations - his transactional nature - are front and center and have been all along.
This is the man the people have decided will best lead them. This is democracy in action.
>The American public are smart. They are not easily duped. They understand that when he says Social Security and Medicare are bring left alone, he intends to cut them.
That's ridiculous. Your central premise seems to be that because Trump has lied before, we live in opposite land. Not only that but that the American public is 100% behind the opposite of what they were promised, which is also very bad for them and their families personally. Your rationale makes absolutely no sense.
He's not a "liar" in the way most people are. He's a liar in the sense that you are in on the lie, that you understand the lie is a lie.
This is not "some of the act" - its his whole shtick.
Yes, I think most of what he does will be very bad for most of the people who voted for him. Yes I think they voted for the exact opposite of what is good for them.
But this is a guy with a 4 year term already behind him. This is a guy running to stay out of jail. This is the guy people voted for. More than in 2016, more than in 2020. More across all demographics. More in 90% of counties .
The voter understands the pain that is coming, and embraces it as necessary for the coming greatness. The willingness to put their own suffering aside, to willingly endure the oncoming hardships, to vote against their personal best interest is admirable.
At least I assume this is what happened.
Again you describe what most politicians do. Trump's lying is not quantitatively nor qualitatively more severe than any other politician at that level, certainly not more than Biden or Kamala.
>He's not a "liar" in the way most people are. He's a liar in the sense that you are in on the lie, that you understand the lie is a lie.
I don't buy this.
>But this is a guy with a 4 year term already behind him. This is a guy running to stay out of jail. This is the guy people voted for. More than in 2016, more than in 2020. More across all demographics. More in 90% of counties .
Need I remind you that Biden pardoned his son for a huge period of time and undisclosed crimes which he himself might be an accomplice?
>The voter understands the pain that is coming, and embraces it as necessary for the coming greatness. The willingness to put their own suffering aside, to willingly endure the oncoming hardships, to vote against their personal best interest is admirable.
I don't think this is what happened. Although the Trump campaign did make vague references to temporary pain, it explicitly denied that any benefits would be cut or taxes increased (except for the tariffs). People are suffering because of high inflation and a stagnant economy. They see hundreds of billions of dollars go abroad as we struggle to cover expenses at home. They are not down for more taxes, reduced benefits, or any such thing. You're bending over backward to say that voters want the exact opposite of what they were promised, and that's ridiculous.
I don't know how many people think our Western lifestyles are sustainable. One thing is for sure though. If you're a politician and you admit defeat, and say we can't possibly have the lifestyles we've had for many decades without some kind of awful intervention like a massive war, high taxes, or cuts to essential services, you're guaranteeing your own loss. People want to believe there is a way, and they're not ready to give up their way of life yet just because some politician says they aren't being reasonable or they don't deserve it.
I'd argue that it is much worse - but each to his own bubble.
>> Need I remind you that Biden pardoned his son for a huge period of time and undisclosed crimes which he himself might be an accomplice?
ahh yes, the mythical Biden crime family... Any minute now there's be some evidence of literally anything - anything at all... No wait, before we get to evidence we'll at least have an idea of what crime he's supposed to have committed? (The drug and gun charges are fair enough - but they're very much related to Hunter - not to Joe.)
>> They are not down for more taxes, reduced benefits, or any such thing.
That's a pity then. 'Cause that's what's coming. That's obvious to anyone who's paid the slightest attention to the Republican agenda for this term. I _assumed_ that voters understood that's what they were voting for - whereas you're correcting me to explain that they were simply duped. (I'm not in the US, so it's hard to see that from here, so thank's for the correction...)
>> I don't know how many people think our Western lifestyles are sustainable. >> ... >> People want to believe there is a way, and they're not ready to give up their way of life yet just because some politician says [it's not possible].
So they cast a vote based on wishful thinking? Ironically I think the current lifestyle is sustainable in the long term, with only minor lifestyle changes. But it would seem then that your voters would prefer to simply pretend the problems don't exist? That they can magically go back to 50 years ago?
I must say, it sounds like you have less faith in the US voter than I do...
>> it explicitly denied that any benefits would be cut or taxes increased (except for the tariffs).
I mean sure, if you call it a "tariff" not a "tax" then maybe it sounds better. But they're the same thing no? Given that it was such a focal point of the platform I'm pretty sure Republican voters understand that.
On the benefits front - a target cut of $2 trillion was made very clear. Looking at govt spending how exactly can that number be reached _without_ cutting benefits?
I guess the next 4 years will play out, and either it'll be better or worse. My money is on worse (just based on the economic impact of the policies already announced) but I don't have a crystal ball, so I guess anything is possible...
What more evidence do you need besides Biden pardoned his son in general for any and all offenses he committed in a 10 year period? The laptop has been acknowledged by even the pro-Democrat media now, after years of trying to bury the story and censor everyone on the topic. There is evidence of crimes related to Hunter's position on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian oil company. Biden had a lot of political protection to cover this up which is falling apart now.
>So they cast a vote based on wishful thinking? Ironically I think the current lifestyle is sustainable in the long term, with only minor lifestyle changes. But it would seem then that your voters would prefer to simply pretend the problems don't exist? That they can magically go back to 50 years ago?
>I must say, it sounds like you have less faith in the US voter than I do...
I say it's wishful thinking because the bottom line is we are going deeper and deeper into debt, outsourcing everything, and this election is the first sign in a long time that the public is waking up to their own demise.
>On the benefits front - a target cut of $2 trillion was made very clear. Looking at govt spending how exactly can that number be reached _without_ cutting benefits?
That was quite literally a random number that the campaign picked. I don't think they know how to cut $2 trillion. They promised not to cut benefits. Ending the wars might help, and maybe some things can be made more efficient. But a noticeable reduction in government benefits won't fly.
>I guess the next 4 years will play out, and either it'll be better or worse. My money is on worse (just based on the economic impact of the policies already announced) but I don't have a crystal ball, so I guess anything is possible...
My money is on worse. Not because Trump has the wrong idea, but because it's never gone any other way in my lifetime really, and I don't think he is a magician. I think a lot of people recognize that we're in a lot of trouble but don't see a way out. They can't even stop their jobs from being given to foreign workers and overseas companies. Many of them are struggling to get by. I myself make "good" money but I don't know when or if I will be able to buy a house or retire. Don't even get me started on the dating/marriage market.
Of course the politician does this, but if you think this somehow granted you carte blanche to write out of your ass you are a special kind of delusional.