I’m not sure you understand how nations work. We elect people to work in our best interests. We are in competition with other countries.
Our blue collar jobs have stagnated since we’ve been off-shoring manufacturing to China.
The poor in the US were getting poorer. Not everyone has the ability to transition into a thinking job and we need a balanced economy for these people.
It's the whole competition mentality. If anything the US is in a competition against themselves. Everything seems to fight against helping your fellow man and all about gettings yours before anyone get's theirs.
Healthcare for you fellow citizens? So controversial. Billions of dollars for war and killing others? Well that's ok then, let's spend that money no questions asked.
You guys are at competition so much with each other that you create scary fake bogeymen (like the chinese) to distract that you're really fighting yourselves.
The whole world isn't always a competition to win. I'd rather cooperate and we can all have a win/win instead of a win/lose.
That competition mentality is why US innovation and dominance has reigned supreme for so many years. Competition is the driving force of the American economy and its fruits have benefited the world
I don't think anybody is fighting against helping their fellow man. What they are angry about is having the big guns of government pointed at their heads while the rewards of their labor are siphoned away under the guise of charity. Once you help someone at another person's expense, you've crossed the border between charity and extortion.
"What they are angry about is having the big guns of government pointed at their heads while the rewards of their labor are siphoned away under the guise of charity."
Health insurance, to keep that example rolling, has nothing to do with charity. It has all to do with the pooling of risks.
I do not understand how you arrived at that conclusion. Could you explain?
I think my point is simple and clear. If you choose to help the poor at your own expense, it is charity. If you want to help the poor at my expense, it is extortion. People don't mind the first. They mind very much the second.
That's it. That is the entirety of my point. There are no hidden layers to peel back. No need to downvote me for being against electric cars. I own one myself.
Yeah, choosing to help the poor - like Tesla. I see you made that choice, but why should I as a taxpayer have to foot the bill as well?
Edit: Oh sorry, I realized you might be referring to helping the poor banks during the 2008 financial crisis. Well, I don't want to pay for that either.
sigh. You seem to want to read into what I said more than is there, and to have an argument that is entirely unrelated to anything I've ever said throughout the entirety of my 50+ years on this planet. That being the case, you'll have to find another opponent of your political angst to argue with. I simply have no interest.
I think you misunderstood. I'm violently agreeing with you! I don't think we should have our property confiscated by the force of the government to support these poor corporations. They're not living, breathing people after all.
Not to disagree (or agree), but it seems to me most USians were quite happy to buy cheap Chinese crap at Walmart & Amazon in the last decades, thus off-shoring their own jobs. The chickens are home to roost.
This started well before the Chinese were into manufacturing, clear back in the 70s with cheap Japanese imports. Then it moved to Taiwan, and now China. Honestly, wages in the US have been too high to avoid this for quite a long time, and the only way I see consumer manufacturing moving back is through increased automation.
Unfortunately, I see no realistic way to bring back the kind of manufacturing jobs in the same numbers we had in the 50s-70s. And nobody wants to work them anyway, a family friend runs a small company making material handling equipment, and he is always short of assemblers. At one point he was starting assemblers higher than welders, and still struggled. We're fighting too many years of telling kids to avoid the trades and go to college. I can't find the link, but NPR recently ran a story about innovative schools that are starting maker spaces. All schools used to have that, it was called shop class.
These moves from the trump administration seem to me like closing the gate after the horses have already bolted, and stand to harm what manufacturing jobs we have left as well as pissing off our allies.
Especially your point about automation. Now imagine a world where the US can make things again at a cost competitive rate due to automation. Ok, now look at how those goods would be taxed overseas...
We still would have an export problem due to other country’s protectionist tariffs.
The point of the trade negotiations is to get better terms for US exports. This is critical as we come to a turning point in manufacturing.
The trouble, as bunnie points out in the article, is that the tariffs apply to things like components, not finished assemblies. So why would I locate a SMD assembly line in the US if my raw materials are higher, when I can also assemble the product overseas and avoid these tariffs?
Ah, so it is the poor peoples fault that as the good paying manufacturing jobs were shifted first to Mexico then to other countries they shopped at stores that offered cheaper goods so that they could keep up their standard of living!
Then tax the rich and feed the poor. Don’t erode the competitive advantage of America. The solution is pretty simple. People are looking east instead of west for everything.
Our blue collar jobs have stagnated since we’ve been off-shoring manufacturing to China.
The poor in the US were getting poorer. Not everyone has the ability to transition into a thinking job and we need a balanced economy for these people.