Comment by threeseed
8 days ago
> Americans have been hurt for 50 years
No they haven't. They've benefitted from it.
Because now most Americans don't slave away in unsafe factories 7 days/week for dollars an hour.
8 days ago
> Americans have been hurt for 50 years
No they haven't. They've benefitted from it.
Because now most Americans don't slave away in unsafe factories 7 days/week for dollars an hour.
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've benefitted from it.
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?
Anything?
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.
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.
> People want their factories and incomes back
But are they willing to work for below minimum wage for ridiculously long hours ?
Because otherwise that factory will be uncompetitive against China, Vietnam, India etc.
Unless of course you want to resort to tariffs which will instead transfer that cost onto everyone.
> 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.
You shoe-horned two things together - free will and rationality.
Just because free will doesn't exist, doesn't mean they didn't act "rationally" (whatever that even means in this case).
Deindustrialization and Nikefication in the past several decades isn't "rational" long-term behavior either.
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>>People want their factories back.
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.
> They benefitted from it so hard they voted for the exact opposite with eyes wide open. Twice.
People vote against their own interests constantly. This is literally evidence of that.
> vote against their own interests
The go to midwit rationalization for every electoral loss.
Note the abject lack of anything resembling an alternative.
> 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.
Congratulations!
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.
> No they haven't. They've benefitted from it.
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
Yeah … talk to someone who worked in the 50s and 60s in Detroit.
Or anyone who worked as a switchboard operator. Nobody did anything to protect their jobs!
How about steel mill jobs paying $35/hr?
Saying Americans haven’t been hurt they’ve benefited applies to white collar workers only - no change to jobs and cheaper goods.
Plenty of white collar jobs have moved overseas e.g. IT, marketing, call centres. Especially with remote work.
The point is that as a country it has adapted by people moving into industries that aren't able to be easily outsourced.
The US today produces more steel than it ever has in its history, with ~1/10th of its peak workforce.
Those jobs aren't coming back.
>>> Americans have been hurt for 50 years
>> No they haven't. They've benefitted from it.
> 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.
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Now they're safely home, unemployed.