Comment by kypro
1 day ago
Genuinely curious – what do you think the solution is?
Personally I think labels like "nationalist" are unhelpful, but regardless what you label it what I do believe is that there needs to be a genuine conversation about whether it's better to have more expensive goods and services if it means people have jobs and opportunities.
I'd be fine with iPhones costing 2-3x more if I knew they were built domestically. Those who couldn't afford them could always buy second hand or hold on to them for longer. And historically of course this was often how things worked... People brought quality clothes or quality furniture and looked after them for years – decades even. Whereas today because we can exploit foreigners for super cheap goods we don't really care if we need to buy a new pair of shoes every 6 months – it's created a completely different economic model and one that a skilled worker cannot compete with, at least on price.
Perhaps the economy on the whole wouldn't grow as fast if there were more protectionist policies, but at the same time I'd be amazed if it didn't significantly improve job prospects and inequality.
That said, we almost everyone in the middle-class deserves to lose their jobs to foreign workers for how awful they've treated those below them for struggling to find good work in the era of globalisation.
I think we can still have some eprotecrionist policies while partipating trade. We can even have some tariffs if they're well thought out, such as anti-dumping or on certain sectors (Trump 1 and Biden). Protectionism might not be the biggest factor in economic growth. It feels like the tariffs haven't changed much from a personal perspective. Im more concerned about unemployment due to rates and the section 174(?) changes. The tariffs have nothing to do with all the layoffs. It also feels like AI and automation have a lot of companies just waiting to see if they're really need to hire more people if if they can just use AI. Seems like lots of people are filling multiple roles right now.
I get that the economy is measured by GDP and we did see it shrink in Q1. However, it doesn't feel like a good measure due to all the inequality. It feels like stuff like credit card balances, mortgage defaults, and unemployment are better numbers. Those don't look good but haven't skyrocketed either... yet.
Yeah, the middle class has been shrinking for years. I do think some of the absolutist free trade stances we had played a role. I'm probably going to lose my job soon and if feel like I'll just end up working at Walmart. I've never understood how the candidates that say they're pro labor are also the ones pushing for absolutist free trade and environmental restrictions. Some of these are at odds. If you're free trade, you're just shifting those jobs to the cheaper markets. That's also where the environmental and worker protection seem to be weakest.
> I'd be fine with iPhones costing 2-3x more if I knew they were built domestically
This is easy to check!
Pretend they are built domestically and give 2x the cost of it to a charity you love the next time you buy an iPhone.
Charity isn't the same as a functioning domestic economy which is what he and everyone else saying this want.
The key word in my comment is “pretend.”
There is some situation in which he is claiming to be happily spending 3x on an iPhone.
He should pretend that situation exists to see if he will actually spend 3x on an iPhone before being so confident that he actually will happily spend 3x on an iPhone in some uncertain future.