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Intel Co-Founder Calls For Tax On Offshored Labor

Posted by Soulskill on from the wishful-thinking dept.

theodp writes "Intel co-founder and ex-CEO Andy Grove calls BS on the truism that moving production offshore to locations with much lower wages is a sound idea. 'Not only did we lose an untold number of jobs,' says Grove, 'we broke the chain of experience that is so important in technological evolution. As happened with batteries, abandoning today's "commodity" manufacturing can lock you out of tomorrow's emerging industry.' To rebuild its industrial commons, Grove says the US should develop a system of financial incentives, including an extra tax on the product of offshored labor. 'If the result is a trade war,' Grove advises, 'treat it like other wars — fight to win.'"

7 of 565 comments (clear)

  1. Treating symptoms instead of disease by mark72005 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    As usual, the only solution the small-minded can come up with is to tax something into oblivion

  2. Government is the problem, not the solution by slk · · Score: -1, Flamebait
    The fact is, despite the cheaper labor, there is a great deal of overhead in doing business in China and similar countries. This includes infrastructure issues (i.e. electricity and transportation), responsiveness to customer demand, bribes, and the fact that it really does take more people to get the same work done. The US could be competitive, but it needs to unshackle itself from bad policy:
    • Pass a national right-to-work law
    • Reduce the power of unions, kill any threat to employers of card-check
    • Move healthcare to either a totally open market (individuals buy policies, regulated, priced fairly based on avoidable risk), get the companies out of that business
    • Cut corporate marginal tax rates, so companies are actually willing to make a profit in the US
    • Work to eliminate regime uncertainty; stop dangling "we're going to overhaul this later" over major and minor US industries
      (regime uncertainty will hopefully get better after November)
    • Work hard to reduce employer/employment burdens and costs

    If our government did not make it so expensive to hire people, companies would hire more people. (Obvious 101, but apparently not to the current leadership)

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    1. Re:Government is the problem, not the solution by mark72005 · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      I like how the "flamebait" label is reserved for posts from only one side of the political spectrum....

      (go ahead, lay it on me)

    2. Re:Government is the problem, not the solution by MyFirstNameIsPaul · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Another baseless, rhetorical argument that meanders on to unrelated claims of purgatory. I suppose our current course of increased regulation, spending, and taxing is going to lead to some bright place?

      --

      I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.

  3. Blasphemy! by ch-chuck · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    That's anti free trade and will only hurt the consumer. If USians can't compete in the open market maybe we don't deserve to have a 'chain of experience'. The only thing we need to teach our children is how to collect a government handout and shop at WalMart. Andy should be haunted by the spirit of Reagan in the church of Limbaugh.

    (sorry, too much energy drink!!)

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    try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
  4. Re:How do you decide what's offshored labor? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    but if you send the profits to the Caymens

    The what? You took the correct name of the island group - Cayman - pluralised it to Caymen, then superpluralised it to Caymens?

    You retarded fucking cunt, you've obviously disqualified yourself from this discussion. Go away and die, painfully.

  5. Re:the economic justification is actually simple by value_added · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    new. You would think that US-grown rice would have a market in Japan and China - nope, it doesn't meet their standards.

    U.S grown rice doesn't even meet my fucking standards.

    Rice doesn't need to be grown in the US. The majority of what's produced here is grown in arid California fer chrissakes (you know, that state that's been fighting water wars for decades). And the rice that is grown invariably consists of the low-grade, generic varieties that appeal to folks accustomed to the Wonder-bread American-style cusine that grew out the 1950s, or people who otherwise don't know any better and don't care.

    You can, of course, make the argument that a water-intensive crop like rice, if purchased exclusively from countries where it's traditionally grown and traditionally considered a staple, might raise the price for the locals. But that's a weak argument. Most of such countries have every incentive to restrict exports (populations are known to react badly when they can't eat), and the rest of the world should have no problem adapting to a higher-priced imported food and eating something else.

    Indian tech support sucks, but Indian rice certainly doesn't. Same goes for Italian, Thai, Japanese, etc. rice. So if I can say that as an ordinary "white guy", do you really think someone who's Japanese, to use your example, wouldn't balk or laugh out loud at the idea of buying American rice?