alaxhn · HackerTrans

7 bulan yang laludiscuss

I think you are right that you could face some challenges during the screening process but if you get to the interview this should be easy to explain with a face saving excuse.

"The tech industry was doing poorly and I was faced with a layoff so I took whatever job I could get. While I didn't agree with the actions of the administration I felt like I could be a force for good in an otherwise turbulent environment"

As we all know Nazi scientists went on to work for and lead parts of Nasa. The reputation hit of disreputable employers is dramatically overblown.

To be honest you can also get through issues with the resume screening process you can generally just change the wording and section headers a bit in order to avoid a quick filter out.

I'm pretty much a closet conservative working for big tech so I've had a lot of practice with this sort of stuff :D

alaxhn

8 bulan yang laludiscuss

Well if the poster is not doing drugs and is taking care of their health the odds are overwhelmingly against this scenario even if it would satisfy your schadenfreude.

alaxhn

8 bulan yang laludiscuss

The article directly mentions that the author has done complete engine rebuilds. Mechanics who can do things like engine rebuilds (efficiently) can crack six figures in a MCOL area although this industry does tend to expect quite a bit of work (e.g. 50 hours a week probably and not just M-F). Similarly the about page of the author mentions that they didn't like working in tech and left. The author seems to have all of the tools to make well above the median national salary and afford the proverbial white picket fence house with a wife and two kids. Therefore it seems that the author is making a choice to be poor and many of us would find this choice questionable. Coupled with the author stating things like "Should I kill myself for capitalism" this reads like a fairly typical far-left rant against the inhumanity of actually having to work for a living. The author should check their privilege. There are many rungs below what the author describes and people in this environment would kill for the job of doing engine rebuilds 50 hours per week to earn a six figure salary and support their family.

Hey Dom we all find work tough a good chunk of the time and none of us would do it without the paycheck so we aren't exactly feeling sympathy that you don't like it and are choosing to force your family to live in miserable conditions because you don't want to embrace the grind.

alaxhn

tahun laludiscuss

It's hard to say exactly as the possibilities are endless and as I said originally I am not exactly proud of my vote to begin with. Some things that come to mind:

- Clear outperformance (in my judgment) by Canada / Europe as compared to the US (this would indicate policy failure on the part of the US to me) - Large scale war of some sort beyond the level of carnage we are witnessing in Ukraine

alaxhn

tahun laludiscuss

I'll continue playing devils advocate here.

> To improve rust belt manufacturing, you would target competitors of industries in that area, not the whole global economy.

If you accept as a premise that the goal is to prevent offshoring our manufacturing base THEN you may also want to develop new industry and not just protect industries in that area. Moreover the goal is presumably not restricted to just that area it is an example of a specific region which was hard hit.

> We imposed a 32% tariff on Taiwan. Simultaneously, we are making it more expensive to manufacture here in the states. We have 1/4 China's pop - why would we try to compete on raw output by ourselves, instead of strengthening ties w/ the world?

I don't immediately see how each of these statements relate to each other. I'll just reply to "We have 1/4 China's pop - why would we try to compete on raw output by ourselves" by stating that we may want to compete with China on manufacturing output because of national security implications.

> For many countries, there is nothing to negotiate since we already have free trade agreements with them. We may import a lot of goods, but we export a lot of services, like many developed nations do.

The Tariff calculations have a differential rate for each country so it appears to have taken into account to some degree that we need more negotiation with certain relationships. I won't state that this was necessarily done well...

> With regard to raising revenue, think of the tradeoffs. If demand is elastic (given our trade deficit, it has to be!), this will be a tax on many, many American businesses and consumers. Its just moving the taxes from income tax to a consumption tax. That's a worse deal for poorer/middle-class Americans.

A consumption tax is a worse deal for poorer/middle-class Americans. I agree with you. It may be the case that this functions as a consumption tax on foreign labor which could increase the negotiating power of poorer/middle-class Americans.

---

I really do not mean to defend the specific actions of the sudden global Tariffs. I am attempting to explain how I believe some on the right may see things in case people find this interesting. The furthest I will go is to state that I think the fears about a new great depression may be somewhat overblown.

alaxhn

tahun laludiscuss

I broadly agree that free trade increases the pie and is beneficial. I would still like to point out that I can think of two examples where the pie might actually decrease even while conceding in the vast majority of cases the pie does increase and that free trade is largely a good thing.

(1) The comparative advantage of a country is that they do not have strict environmental standards and becomes the low cost leader in a "dirty" industry.

(2) An individual in the rich country loses their job to an individual in the poor country who produces exactly the same level of output at lower cost and the individual in the rich country ends up having to subside on government benefits

For both of these examples, shareholders profit financially from the outsourcing (and so I would argue it is likely happen) even as the world in example 1 or the rich country in example 2 loses out.

alaxhn

tahun laludiscuss

To lay out my own biases

  - I voted for Trump but do not consider myself a strong supporter (I saw it much more of a vote for who you dislike less sort of situation)
  - I don't understand and am not supportive of the approach on Tariffs
  - I am an active participate in what most here would consider right wing politics although I don't find myself aligning on every topic (e.g. I am supportive of the abortion laws in California) so I tend to hear a lot of the chatter "from the other side"

Some arguments that I have heard (which I mostly do not agree with) are

   - When manufacturing moved out of the US to low cost of living countries, this hurt towns which relied on manufacturing (e.g. the rust belt). Cost is the primary reason why manufacturing moved. Raising the cost on overseas manufacturing may make domestic manufacturing cost competitive. Although economics tells us this will still be a net loss there may be externalities which are not priced into the trade (e.g. the towns falling apart and people becoming despondent / drug addicted might not be factored into corporate profit models)
  - Being overly dependent on China or more broadly "foreign powers" for manufacturing represents a national security risk.
  - In theory this could be posturing to provide an opening for the US to negotiate more favorable trade agreements. For example Israel, Vietnam, and Argentina have made some statements about reducing trade barriers on US companies.
  - In theory it could be beneficial to shift the revenue model of the US towards raising revenue with tariffs while reducing interest rates and other tax rates (e.g. "no taxes on overtime and tips")

alaxhn

tahun laludiscuss

European stocks where down even more than US stocks today (although not down nearly as much yesterday)

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