sycasey said:dajo9 said:Unit2Sucks said:Maybe the reason that CB93 and Dajo agree here is because you can't put toothpaste back into the tube. No matter how much people like Minot want to go back to the world where skilled or semi-skilled manufacturing jobs were a path to middle class success for education-averse Americans, it's not going to happen.Anarchistbear said:MinotStateBeav said:You keep saying manufacturing is going away to AI and automation..then why are they manufacturing in those countries? That's a BS argument by globalists lol. Then you go on with taxing americans? Why wouldn't you pay a little more so that your own citizens can live like humans? They get money, they spend money, keeping a healthy economy. I'd rather subsidize my own citizens than those somewhere else. Fix our house first then we can help others.calbear93 said:MinotStateBeav said:It's pretty simple, manufacturing is work that can keep the lower 25% of our population to have a house and savings so they can have children. I really have no other concern than that. The US isn't the worlds keeper. Our job is to protect the people here.calbear93 said:MinotStateBeav said:Asking americans to compete for their jobs with India and China shouldn't have been the bargain.dajo9 said:MinotStateBeav said:If you have no job, you have no health insurance.dajo9 said:MinotStateBeav said:The Democrats sold NAFTA as a huge win for trade and the union leadership swallowed it whole. The membership honestly had no clue how NAFTA would effect things. It was packaged as huge win for trade. That lasted all of like 6 months before they figured out the race to lower wages led to India first and then China because they had better infrastructure. If Bill Clinton was good at something it was selling. Just like Obama.dajo9 said:MinotStateBeav said:
I'm probably closer to an 80s democrat. They use to be a lot more rigid on stuff. Clinton changed the party for the worse imho. Heck my mother was the head of a union here in California. I remember when NAFTA happened and the unions got destroyed. That moment changed me a lot.
And how did the Democrats do in elections in the 1980s?
If Clinton did anything it was follow the people where they wanted to go. Then unions stabbed him in the back when he tried to bring us national healthcare. Was your mother in on that?
Life is full of compromises. Unions got private health insurance like they wanted and the rest of America got NAFTA.
Yes, that is the union position.
I apologize for not understanding this issue well, but please help me understand this. You clearly have a more personal and not theoretical perspective.
Without allowing our companies access to cheaper manufacturing labor outside the US, our products would have greater costs and higher price than foreign products. The only way to counter this would be to create tariffs to even the price of imports. That will not only raise prices for consumers and deflating real wages (same wages buy less) but it will start trade wars where other industries where we excel are now harmed (agriculture, innovation, services). I am wondering whether protecting manufacturing at high costs in the US is worth all the other impact (what your mom experienced would then be shifted to others). And countries like India and China, as their economy improves from globalization, will have a bigger middle class reducing access to low labor. I think we need to protect our IP better, continue to innovate and focus on service. The reality is that with or without globalization, automation will eliminate a big part of manual labor. Seems like we need to focus on the future and how to create a society that elevates instead of clinging to things of the past like coal. My two cents.
But again. Manufacturing is going away to automation and AI. And protecting manufacturing means the same thing as a tax on American people and harm to other industries to artificially protect something where we cannot compete well. Better ways to provide subsidy if that is your hope. But wouldn't it be better to focus on where the future of jobs will be? It is again like coal. I understand the impact of reducing reliance on coal will have on certain segment of the economy but that is the way our world is. It was hard for the locomotive industry when we shifted from reliance on trains. It was hard when we shifted from telegrams. It was hard when we shifted from print to digital media. Everywhere, people who fail to adapt to changes will be more greatly impacted but there are better ways to help those impacted than artificially clinging to things that the world is moving past and then fall behind overall and become less relevant as a nation. What are we good at? It isn't manufacturing better quality at lower cost. Consider where companies like Roper, Honeywell, Amazon etc are focusing with its industrial technology where machines will soon overtake even the cheap labor from India.
It's interesting that ardent antagonists CB93 and Dajo are both arguing against you but also illustrative that there is little difference between these parties on this score. Both are committed to return on capital not on labor. The problem then is one of lack of representation in a "democracy" run by the two most ardent capitalist parties in the world. But why Trump? Did you really believe he has your interests and those of labor at heart?
It's easy to blame politicians of all stripes (and both parties - as you are wont to do) but politicians aren't the reason that unskilled labor is poorly compensated in 2020 in a capitalist system like America. If we protected our unskilled laborers more, it would just accelerate the trends that CB93 is referring to. Companies are always trying to grow top line revenue and reduce costs, including cost of goods sold.
CB93 and I DON'T agree. We just disagree with Minot differently.
You both just agree in that you are willing to accept the reality that the old 1950s economy based on manufacturing and other low-skilled work is not coming back, regardless of what any politician tries to do.
To me, the progressives (including Andrew Yang) have it "more right" on this front in that the government will need to take a more active role in providing for its citizens. I'm not sure I see current conservative policy on this issue leading us anywhere but back to the same bad spot we're in. But perhaps there is a better argument I haven't read yet.
I still disagree with that assessment. 100 years ago the argument was that factory work was too low skilled to warrant higher pay. The same argument used against service workers today. We can pay service workers more. A $15 minimum wage is a good start. Everybody needs healthcare.
Today, too many union workers have too much to lose to put their neck out for those without. They will be against anything that may call for some sacrifice on their part. It's just a much different dynamic from when my grandfather was a union railroad worker before I was born. They were fighting to get a piece of the pie. Now unions have a piece of the pie. My grandfather would be a Trump voter today if he were alive. Fully against those "other" people getting what he has.
Andrew Yang is probably the future. There's more we can do before we go that route, imo. Unions aren't going to get us there. Bernie Sanders is not the answer. I keep pushing the Democratic party left.