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> How an American is going to compete with a guy willing to work for $0.50/day on an 18 hour shift 7 days a week is a mystery. He doesn't even ask for healthcare, and when he dies of exhaustion there are hundreds more waiting to take his place because that's a huge amount of money for them.

Well, that guy would do a really bad job, especially after he dies. You can compete with him by staying healthy and being much more productive.

That's not an accurate description of overseas labor though, those people are skilled at what they do and their PPP-adjusted pay is better than that. (Sometimes overseas developers aren't skilled at enterprise development, in that case their skill is scamming the outsourcing manager.)

> One of the few things I think Trump got right is when he brought tariffs back. If you want companies to keep jobs in the US you have to make the labor cost just as much no matter where you find it.

That's not what a tariff does, a tariff makes foreign companies' products more expensive for domestic customers. It's just a pointless tax increase. And when the other country fights back it makes your products more expensive for foreign customers, hurting you.

Keeping jobs domestically means doing the opposite, increasing foreign customers for your stuff. This falls under industrial policy and it's what the overseas countries taking your jobs did better than us.



I mean it depends on the job... you are not going to outcompete textile workers in South or Southeast Asia.




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