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Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

We warned everyone that this would happen [0] but HN fell for the populism trap.

And no one on the Hill will do anything to impact services exports, especially for voters who work in maligned industries like Tech [1], Big Oil [2], and Wall Street [3] that are overwhelmingly concentrated in single party states like California, Washington, Texas, and New York and as such can't swing elections the same way an Autoworker, Healthcare Worker, or Farmworker can.

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45308408

[1] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-11/india-dra...

[2] - https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/big-oil-is-offshorin...

[3] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-11-11/trump-s-h...

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I love how this is always framed as a "pipeline and talent" problem issue (its not), when it's really a "pipeline and talent at salaries I want to pay" issue.

Every economic decisions has that "at the price I want" caveat at the end of it?

There's no housing shortage, just a shortage of house at the right place and price. Different places have the right price, the right places don't have the right prices.

There's no job shortage, just a shortage of jobs that pay what I want and am qualified for.

Shortages happen in controlled economies, capitalism just adjusts prices.

Houses are different. There is a finite number of them at any time and if there are not enough for everyone, there's a shortage.

If wages are too high, then some work just doesn't get done, some business plans are now unviable.

But everybody needs a place to live.

I like paying as little as possible for everything I buy as well and so does everyone else reading this. So what's the problem?

At least you own it, rather than making up an excuse like "talent shortage" or "pipeline" issue to try to conceal the fact that at the end of the day you're just trying to save a buck.

Yes I say you are right, but that only proves these companies only want to hire very cheap labor.

There is talent in the US, all it takes is training. Decades ago companies would train new hires out of college, but that trend ended in the 90s.

Wall Street started forcing these companies to chase fast market growth and high stock prices. In many cases profit has no meaning for these startups, the only metric is stock price growing. Then once the investors can sell the stock, they bail leaving the company to figure out how to survive by itself.

It’s less this but more that talent diversity is present elsewhere. You need constant supply of talent and a good ecosystem that sustains it.

Focusing talent only in a small geographical area has its own risks.

Talent diversity willing to work for lower salaries is present elsewhere. That's really what it comes down to.

Yeah so? Willing to work for lower salaries is tied to the dynamic of having more supply of labour.

What alternative do you propose?

> Decades ago companies would train new hires out out college, but that trend ended in the 90s.

Decades ago engineering salaries were a fraction of what they are today, developing countries did not have computing and educational infrastructure, and we had worse solutions to the logistics challenges from off-shoring.

It is increasingly difficult to justify the US salaries and I'm not sure that the talent pipeline in the US is so superior to make up for it.

As folks optimize for getting these high paying jobs it is increasingly difficult to find someone who has legitimate problem solving skills vs someone who has invested a lot of effort into looking hireable.

> Decades ago engineering salaries were a fraction of what they are today

That may be so at the FAANGs and the companies trying to become FAANG-like, but I'm not sure that's the case for people working at more ordinary places.

3 decades ago I worked at a place making retail software for Windows and Mac. I had ~15 years experience. The net tells me that today median total compensation for that kind of job at that experience level would be around $150k/year.

I made $63k that year. My recollection is that this was a pretty normal amount at the time.

If we adjust using CPI that would be $132k now, which suggests my salary then was about 12% lower than an equivalent salary today. However, if we adjust using the indexing factors [1], which are usually consider better than using CPI for comparing wages across time, my $63k then is equivalent to $169k now.

[1] https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/awifactors.html

> There is talent in the US, all it takes is training

Training is expensive and can fail.

That's why experience has value.

oh well.... I'm totally fine with this.

Certainly for the people working there, right?

Warned? I knew this was going to happen and want to see more of it. I don't believe in government enforced discrimination based on country of origin. If you can't compete with someone overseas that's on you, don't make it my problem and don't go crying to the government to force others to hire you.

Do you believe in workers' rights?

It depends if that's a euphemism for nativist negative-sum protectionism.

If I can't compete with someone overseas because I legally have to get a minimum wage and various benefits, while overseas guy will work 996 with a dollar an hour, why is that on me? We can either have worker's rights or we can have a globally equal competitive field, but not both.

The problem for me is that your conceptualization of worker's rights negatively impacts poorer people, stuck in poorer countries, who need that work more for basic survival.

So if we're forming normative opinions based on morality (reducing suffering or whatnot), why would I support that? And if we're not not appealing to morality, then what are you appealing to, and why would I want to go along with it?

The only argument I see is a nativist and protectionist one, which uses the superficial facade of morality as a misdirection.

My intention is not to punch down on anyone. I support some level of taxation and wealth redistribution. I support anti-slavery legislation.

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