Andy Grove, co-founder of Intel, says that offshoring of manufacturing jobs has gone too far. When every company is trying to maximize its profit margins, the end result is an economy where new insights are not possible -- because it's in the process of manufacturing old technologies that new innovations happen.
He suggests an offshoring excise tax:
The first task is to rebuild our industrial commons. We should develop a system of financial incentives: Levy an extra tax on the product of offshored labor. (If the result is a trade war, treat it like other wars -- fight to win.) Keep that money separate. Deposit it in the coffers of what we might call the Scaling Bank of the U.S. and make these sums available to companies that will scale their American operations. Such a system would be a daily reminder that while pursuing our company goals, all of us in business have a responsibility to maintain the industrial base on which we depend and the society whose adaptability -- and stability -- we may have taken for granted.
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