Americans have been hurt for 50 years … yes manufacturing going overseas was a huge change and many administrations didn’t do enough to help affected workers. Buuuuuut - placing tariffs on our allies that will likely lead to a recession makes no sense.
Devaluing the dollar and subsidizing production in the US makes far more sense.
America got richer and outgrew the phase where tons of factory jobs made sense. It seems pretty clear to me that well-paying manufacturing job in developed countries were the product of a particular moment in time where poorer countries couldn't do it yet. Now they can. It was never going to last.
I live in NJ and people often make a lot of noise every time there's a report of people moving out of NJ because of high taxes and high housing costs (yet NJ's overall population has increased).
To me, it makes sense: NJ is a place where you live to make a high salary (proximity to NYC and Philadelphia) and raise a family (very good public school systems as a result of those high taxes). When you no longer have a need for those circumstances, you move.
Likewise, the US is not a great place for certain types of manufacturing because the labor and raw material supply chain simply isn't there. Why not focus on the things that we are good at instead?
It was never going to last if the US allowed for very low cost imports from those countries. This is literally one of the largest points of tariffs - protecting domestic manufacturing. We could have had high tariffs the whole time and offshoring would have been much less pronounced. I'm not saying that would have been a net positive, but to say it would never last is only true under certain circumstances.
You were still going to lose export markets as international competition grew, and you were still going to shift to higher value-added service jobs as the economy developed.
Can you please explain a bit more about this 'hurt'?
My understanding is that a significant majority of sources of US 'hurt' are internal and there has been ample opportunity to vote at least some of it away, but the votes keep going in the direction of making it worse.
The worst thing about it is that the situation has essentially been perpetrated on the citizens of the US by those with power and influence for the simple human weakness of greed. Unfortunately they've got the power and resources to effectively do large scale "convincing".
The error is assuming that Americans are homogenous. Wealthy ones benefited tremendously by reducing their production costs while the less fortunate were put into international labour productivity competition.
And yet, we have a system where the less fortunate could, simply by choosing to, make the government use some of the wealthy people’s money to make things better for themselves. This has been done in the past in the US, during the years that many consider America’s best. In other countries, the poor don’t have this option.
But, they choose not to. To some this choice is noble, to others it’s foolish. Either way, what can you do?
When the wealth redistribution were done in the past there happened to be a strong movements that backed the change. I don’t see prospects of that happening in the foreseeable future given the new technologies of surveillance and deception.
Well, does the American public make it viable for a politician to push for expenditure of taxes on supporting the "less fortunate", say in terms of re-education or, you know, subsidizing social safety nets? If income inequality was such an issue, why did Americans put into power a billionaire to design the economy twice? Lol
Income inequality does not have a chance of standing as relevant issue in corporate media. Furthermore social media has become a significant suppressor by shaming (perhaps not the right word) people of their circumstances. As a result the perceived public opinion is far from actual opinion of the people on the relevant issues that Bernie Sanders often speaks about.
Whereas some did vote for the Trump in spite to make others suffer as they already do.
They benefitted from it so hard they voted for the exact opposite with eyes wide open. Twice.
> Because now most Americans don't slave away in unsafe factories 7 days/week for dollars an hour.
Now they're collecting disability in their unsafe neighborhoods, getting morbidly obese while their substance abusing kids play vidya games in the basement into their 30s.
Yes, it's really like that. People want their factories and incomes back. I don't claim that anything happening here is going to deliver that, but that's the pitch they're voting for. To their credit, at least they're pursuing that in lieu of some UBI ideocracy made of fantasy money.
As for you: it's fine to point out all the ways they may be misguided and/or misled, but unless you have an alternative that doesn't amount to expecting everyone to somehow earn an advanced degree, and then discover it's next to worthless (even before "AI",) your really not contributing much. So what do you have?
People who voted that wouldn't want to work at factories with working conditions and salaries Chinese factories make everything they consume. They also don't support the unions that would make working bearable in factories. Even if somehow factories would return and pay reasonable compensation, that would make the products so expensive most Americans couldn't afford them. People would have to consume a lot less. Which may be a good thing for the planet, but I doubt that's what the voters are prepared for.
> They benefitted from it so hard they voted for the exact opposite with eyes wide open. Twice.
Have you considered the platform that the Republicans have actually been running on? Was it one of economic policy? Did you consider why they attacked DEI and minority groups (including LGBTQ)? Because they would not have won on this roughshod economic policy.
> They benefitted from it so hard they voted for the exact opposite with eyes wide open. Twice.
This conundrum, like so many others in public discourse, is downstream of the widespread but fundamentally incorrect belief in free will (which in turn is downstream of belief in supernatural powers, because free will sure as hell isn't explained by anything in nature).
Nothing is in anyone's control. There's no such thing as "eyes wide open". People's behaviors are 100% downstream of genetics and environment. Some people behave rationally some of the time, and to the extent they do so it is because the environment set them up to do that. There is absolutely no coherent reason to generalize that into the idea that most people vote (or do anything else) rationally.
I mean in their actual self-interest rather than, say, what they have been made to believe is in their self-interest.
> Deindustrialization and Nikefication in the past several decades isn't "rational" long-term behavior either.
Maybe, but I was responding to "They benefitted from it so hard they voted for the exact opposite with eyes wide open. Twice."
There's an implication here, and in a subsequent reply that people voting against their interests is "[t]he go to midwit rationalization for every electoral loss", that people exercised free will when they voted.
This is plainly incorrect, because free will quite clearly does not exist. No one has ever shown the kinds of violations in the laws of physics that would be required for free will to exist.
Since free will does not exist, there is simply no a priori reason to believe that people voted in their interests. People's voting decisions, like everything else they do, are out of their control. To the extent that they vote in a particular way that's good or bad for them, it's driven purely by luck and circumstances.
It is this a priori belief that people vote or act in their own interests that's the real "midwit rationalization".
> There's an implication here, that people exercised free will when they voted.
There's no such implication.
> This is plainly incorrect, because free will quite clearly does not exist.
> Since free will does not exist, there is simply no a priori reason to believe that people voted in their interests.
What are you even talking about.
People (and living beings in general) acting in their own self-interest - pretty much all the time - it is the most universal general principle of life if there ever was one. This doesn't require or involve free will.
How well a biorobot (no free will!) executes in pursuing his self-interests, is the selection critereon.
Now, the people make mistakes pursuing their self-interests, doesn't mean they aren't acting in their self-interest. Because they sure as hell are - all the frigging time! It's their whole firmware!
Deindustrialization / nikefication all the way through the value chain except the very, very top last step of the value add - hasn't been in their self-interest, it isn't in the interests of their nation either.
It's only in the self-interests of short-term thinking shareholders that min-max asset valuations with great costs to everyone else but themselves.
> People (and living beings in general) acting in their own self-interest - pretty much all the time - it is the most universal general principle of life if there ever was one.
Base evolutionary instincts to survive don't translate to humans living in complex modern societies acting in their self-interest.
>Base evolutionary instincts to survive don't translate to humans living in complex modern societies acting in their self-interest.
What are you talking about?
Base evolutionary pressures and instincts have translated in exactly that.
Complex modern societies, and emergent behaviors and strategies arise from agents acting in their own self-interest (organizing in groups or otherwise to further their goals).
The idea that not only people don't act in their self-interest, but you - in fact - know better what's in their best interest is truly some mid-tier thinking. Or that you have some unique ability to know what's in their best self-interest, but they... for some reason... don't.
Now it doesn't mean that acting in self-interest doesn't sometimes result in ruin, because it surely can!
That however doesn't mean that all these choices weren't made with self-interest in mind, front and center, despite people claiming otherwise.
The groups and societies that enact the winning, most sensible strategy, economic and industrial policy will win out.
Those individually or in groups that don't, will go to shitter and or be selected out. It's that simple.
I think people with expertise and training do generally know what's in people's interest more than untrained people themselves, yes. I also think that the fact that this isn't blindingly obvious to most folks is at the heart of a lot of the rot in modern society.
> I think people with expertise and training do generally know what's in people's interest more than untrained people themselves
For petes sake dude, people act in their own self-interests.
That includes so called "people with expertise and training", or more correctly put - credentialed people.
They worked towards getting these credentials (fancy law or economics degree at a fancy university) - not because they were interested in acting in interests of the "untrained people". They just wanted a cushy, high status, well paid job.
What do you think governments are ran by - generally speaking? People without "expertise"(cough, cough) and "training"?
No, they are ran by people with "expertise and training" (ie. credentialed)!
The problem is that they mainly act in their self-interests (and interests of their social group) first and foremost, and not for their expertise or lack-thereof. And the people that vie for positions of power and status act in their self-interests and interests of their social clique squared or cubed. Everything else is an afterthought.
>I also think that the fact that this isn't blindingly obvious to most folks is at the heart of a lot of the rot in modern society.
> Experience and training makes you better at things. What can I say.
The orange has a degree in economics by the way (from a ivy league uni too). So you could say he has both the credentials, the experience and the training. You could even... dare I say... call him an expert.
Or you could just accept the obvious - any barely functioning middling brain can get credentials and become an "expert". And that they do. It is neither a competency nor an intellect filter.
Neither is there personal responsibility or real liability if they are wrong about their economic and other policies that lead to ruin (endless list of examples of this in past). Seen any heads on the pike lately? Yeah, me neither.
Nor are there incentives in place to think what's in other "common" peoples best interests. So why would they?
There's a long line of "expert economists", Paul Krugman among others who advocated for free-trade policies that directly led to nikefication, deindustrialization of US. Now they are nowhere to be seen to take the credit, woops!
The presumption that the credentialed ("expert") knows (or even cares frankly) what's in other common peoples best interest is completely baseless and extremely naive.
The credentialed "experts" being so incompetent and confidently wrong is what gave you the orange. Now orange is the "expert"! And you better listen!
No, I wouldn't call him an expert. I'd call him deeply incompetent and missing basic skills.
Simply having a credential is not enough. You need actual training and expertise — to be good at what you do. I'm thinking of all the scientists and bureaucrats who run things like the NIH, vaccine programs, and air quality/pollution control. Many people do not perceive those programs to be in their self-interest. But in reality they are, regardless of someone's personal opinion.
Instead of going "hmmm, they oppose green policies, which means pollution IS in their self-interests -
ie. they are probably from a coal mining town, working in a fossil fuel petro chemical related industry
or an area with industrial outputs wherein their livelihood solely depends on pollution to a large extent".
Or maybe they can't afford an expensive electric vehicle and an old dirty gas guzzling clunker is the only means of transportation they have.
Or that they move from a pollution free country-side to a polluted dirty city, not because they seek the pollution, but because the opportunities and jobs are more in their self-interests than... ODing on fenta in pristine clean air.
Naah, midwits don't do this.
They presume they are smart and everyone else is stupid and need guidance from the expert (that would be me, the midwit of course), and everything else is derived from it.
When the "expert" gets rejected on basis of incompetence or not acting in their self-interests,
that always upsets the midwit, because the midwit always self-identifies as an expert. And rejection of the "experts" equals rejection of the midwit.
Of course, the midwit never has demonstrated competence (nobody doubts demonstrated competence!), all they have is credentials and university degrees and papers. This frustrates the midwit to no end.
Demonstrated expertise and competence is always outside their abilities and reach - they are far from somebody like John Carmack, Michael Abrash, etc who has many shipped products, you can see his code. Nobody doubts their competency, etc. All they have instead is some sort of paper that says "believe me I'm an expert".
No matter what training, education or experience midwit has... he still is just a midwit at the end of the day.
As per modus operandi of the midwit, you didn't demonstrate anything. You just disagreed.
I implore you to bring evidence where demonstrated competency of John Carmack or Michael Abrash is called into question. Demostrate how that is a phenomenon or a trend. And if you can't, I rest my case.
It is obvious to any reasonable person that in the statement "nobody" doesn't literally mean not a single entity within 8 billion population of the planet.
You said "demonstrated competence" in general, not Carmack or Abrash.
My own competence has repeatedly been questioned, even though I've consistently delivered results on the teams I've been on. My body of work is almost all public so feel free to verify yourself. It turns out that how much you're questioned has a lot to do with race and gender — basically every single highly skilled minority I know has been in this position.
> You said "demonstrated competence" in general, not Carmack or Abrash.
I did specifically mention Carmack and Abrash to give a concrete example of what demonstrated competence is.
And to avoid having to argue some vague, watered down, abstract pedestrian notion of what "demonstrated competence" is.
>My own competence has repeatedly been questioned, even though I've consistently delivered results on the teams I've been on. My body of work is almost all public so feel free to verify yourself. It turns out that how much you're questioned has a lot to do with race and gender — basically every single highly skilled minority I know has been in this position.
It looks like my intuiton has been on point here. You see yourself as a highly skilled, competent expert.
Except others are apparently not always sharing in your self aggrandizing perception of self.
Since you can't come to terms with this, hijinx insues wherein you assume that everyone else is just stupid, irrational instead. Or you surmise that they reject your "competency and expertise" based on irrelevant immutable characteristics.
Did you ever work at a factory? I did. I would most certainly prefer to collect a pension and play video games (which I do now in retirement). Anyone would.
> Now they're collecting disability in their unsafe neighborhoods, getting morbidly obese while their substance abusing kids play vidya games in the basement into their 30s.
> People want their factories and incomes back
Sounds like what they really want is safety and hope for their futures. I'm not sure going back to the way things were - good or bad - is the way for society to move forward though.
Doomsaying prognostications, odd questions, free will talk for some reason, evidence free assertions about voters and their interests, doubts and fears...
And precisely 0.0 alternatives offered.
I can't imagine anyone being surprised that we've ended up with Trump et al. When all you offer is un-actionable thoughts and cowardly status quo, no one will listen to you. Meanwhile, the cohort of disenfranchised, disposable people grows around you until they fear the status quo more than they fear change.
The richest country in the world cannot save their own citizens from poverty. Not to mention most number of millionaires and billionaires. Obviously the solution is to impose tariffs based on some made up numbers. Wonderful idea!
I've met a lot of people in St. Louis working various factory jobs. Making different kinds of specialized equipment, food products. I think they get paid $25+ an hour starting out. A fair amount seem like tedious jobs.
There's around 12.8 million people in the US working in manufacturing.
some benefit. many have been in a state of perpetual poverty/welfare, but we don't see those in the official stats because the rich are so rich here it skews numbers
> Saying Americans haven’t been hurt they’ve benefited applies to white collar workers only - no change to jobs and cheaper goods.
And that's a big reason why Trump won: white collar workers, like the GP, lecturing blue collar workers, while being ignorant of their actual situation.
And what Trump has been doing does not actually serve blue collar workers. Republican policies don't serve blue collar workers in general: anti union policies, for one.
Republican policies serve billionaires and make no attempts to hide this, but they win blue collar votes from foolish people who believe culture war narratives matter.
The culture war was invented to distract from class war waged by billionaires against the working class, hello.
You've just repeated the Democratic party line, designed to cover their ass for their inaction and inattention. Democrats will lecture the blue collar working class to not believe their lying eyes and trust the Democrats, then lecture them on how they have to because Republicans are so much worse.
It's a dumb strategy, and it isn't working anymore.
> Americans have been hurt for 50 years … yes manufacturing going overseas was a huge change and many administrations didn’t do enough to help affected workers. Buuuuuut - placing tariffs on our allies that will likely lead to a recession makes no sense.
Yeah, some tariffs aren't a bad idea. But this plan? Just stupid, without any thought or strategy behind it.
The tariffs should be used more strategically to reorganize supply chains, not these blanket tariffs of low cost and high cost places. And probably ratchet them up slowly, to give time for production to move, instead of a big bang of putting them up everywhere.
So tariff China and Mexico, not Canada and Germany.
> yes manufacturing going overseas was a huge change and many administrations didn’t do enough to help affected workers
Manufacturing didn’t go overseas - it got automated. The US is still the world’s 2nd largest manufacturer, the share of GDP going to manufacturing has been flat since 1950, and so on.
What happened is automation made manufacturing need vastly fewer workers. Nothing is “being jobs back” from a fairy tale reason.
New debt is only more expensive if you have to exchange something of value to obtain the USD to pay down the debt. But since the Fed can expand the money supply at will, it's essentially creating new USD out of thin air which can be used.
(This is how the US has been able to sustain such a large debt without any real consequences.)
What will happen though is that interest rates on T bills will rise, so yes, in that sense, it does eventually become "more expensive" to service new debt. But again it's in nominal dollar terms and so it's just a matter of issuing more dollars. The trick is to do this in a way that doesn't devalue the dollar thus triggering an inflationary cycle.
Devaluing the dollar and subsidizing production in the US makes far more sense.
But I’m not an economist or anything.