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Comment by downthefoxhole | Hacker News Reader

> Anyone based in the US/UK should be an advocate for keeping jobs local for their own long term job security. Anyone who argues the opposite baffles me

It's the lesser of two evils. Given a choice 1) to let H1B's flood the market and produce lower wages, or 2) Have the company setup shop in a foreign land, and hire those people there locally, which do you think is better?

At least with option 1, the money is still being made in the USA, taxes are paid here, and the money is spent here for housing, food, cars, etc.. which benefits everyone around.

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Except outsourcing has been a thing for almost two decades now and it invariably almost never works. Between security/privacy concerns, sometimes timezone issues (depends on where the team is located), and credential fraud (among many other issues) many companies end up reversing their decision.

Still, I think many would certainly advocate for tariffs for any kind of overseas contracting work in addition to reducing the H1B cap.

That both parties are against this sort of thing tells you quite a bit about their donors and motivations.

More like 4 now. NAFTA was over 30 years ago now.

I don't think tarrifs will fix this, though. it didn't in 2018. It just lead to a trade war, costing billions in dollars in millions in jobs lost. We lost a lot of domestic production over the last 15 years, so a trade war arguably hurts the U.S. worse than China or Mexico.

1) If Companies could just outsource this work they would already. An H1B Visa sponsorship is more costly than outsourcing.

2) H1B visa recipients very famously send money back to their home countries. Taking money out of our economy makes your "lesser of two evils" much muddier.

3) Federal taxes are not sufficient to raise the living standards of everyone in the US. Why do you think the concept of Welfare States exists?

> and the money is spent here for housing, food, cars, etc.. w

see point 2

The issue is actually much more complicated than you phrased it and that could be why many people are not willing to fall on the sword in the hope that our government will save them.

When the government starts giving out paychecks based on the federal tax revenue then I will assume the government will pay my rent. Till then you're basically saying "well the homeless shelters will be nicer for y'all"

Edit: Also your thinking leaves no room for the lost man-hours Americans spend applying to jobs that don't exist.

> which do you think is better?

2). we already do it with other sectors where the US lagged behind as a country. But at least those companies aren't sucking up the US's resources directly then not paying for them (taxes).

The US has plenty of funding to bolster and talent to nurture. the next Google if tomorrow Google somehow got bought out by Bytedance.

>At least with option 1, the money is still being made in the USA

Not to the actual workers. Which is the primary problem.

>taxes are paid here

No, no they aren't.

> and the money is spent here for housing, food, cars

Taxes are not paid, therefore we have underdeveloped housing in urban areas, surging food prices (that would have gotten worse with a certain merger), and the "economy" car is now $30, 000 instead of 10 (and EV's are more expensive because government doesn't/can't make subsidies for EV's).

Tariffs and taxes easily solve that issue.

Will they? Trump has said he's in favor of the H1-B program and has given no indications that he plans to lessen or stop it. Tariffs will likely be used as bargaining tools - you won't see tariffs directed at a country because a US corporation has outsourced labor there. There's a lot of noise about changes to immigration right now, but I'd be very unsurprised if little or nothing changed.

I have no issues with the Right learning that it must become further right to achieve its goals.

They worked so well against China in 2018 right?

Correct.

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