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Comment by bitJericho | Hacker News Reader

In my area, we have some of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. We're also some of the hardest working according to statistics taken all over the country. I can guarantee you a call center here is every bit as good as anywhere else in the world. I'd say if you're American and hiring Columbians to do a job we could do for the same price, you're acting not in the interests of your own country. Seems very strange to me not to support your own countrymen. One day the shoe may be on the other foot.

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Having a low unemployment rate actually suggests it would be harder to hire a team there.

But on your bigger point, remember this guy was going to move to the US to do this work until he was told no by our government. I want him to work here instead of in Columbia because I care about the US economy and I want it to do well [1]. The question is really about whether this job in San Francisco should go to someone who was born in the US or elsewhere (with, like you said, everything else being equal). I find it really hard to have a pro-natural-born-American job bias when my (and I'm guessing your) ancestors also came here from other countries seeking work, and more generally, I just don't think foreigners are less deserving of good things than people who happen to have been born here. I guess you'd say that's not supporting my own countrymen, and if so, I'm OK with that.

[1] Wait, why do I care about the US economy more than the Colombian economy? I'm not sure, and I struggle with this. Selfishness, I suspect--I live in the US.

It seems strange to you that people are moving beyond silly patriotism/nationalism?

Hardest doesn't equal most productive. Furthermore, there were less obstacles to him hiring Columbians. I don't see what the problem is here.

Well going a bit off topic, a story a manager of a local manufacturing company told me. They had built a new factory on another side of the country, state of the art, huge. They ended up shutting it down a year later when they found the employees just wouldn't show up to work. This is a business that has operated in my local area for years without any problems like that.

Anyway, silly patriotism? Nah, real patriotism. There's more to being an American than paying your taxes. That said, I'm not some patriotic radical. I can see why it would be better to hire a team abroad. Just not in this case.

Thinking about this more, it's not even that he hired a team abroad. They're friends, you can tell, and sometimes friendship knows no bounds. Or maybe he has some affinity with Columbians and specifically wants to help out the local people; that's honorable too.

My issue is how the article's framed, like it's somehow America's fault! I don't buy it!

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