4 ms·

Michael Moore nailed it: it's a rust belt brexit [1]. Four blue states in the Great Lakes rust belt -- MI, OH, PA, and WI -- all typically blue, all appear to

by x0x0 10y ago

Michael Moore nailed it: it's a rust belt brexit [1]. Four blue states in the Great Lakes rust belt -- MI, OH, PA, and WI -- all typically blue, all appear to have voted for Trump. Since I'm from that area, what Moore points out and the free traders refuse to acknowledge is free trade has been absolutely devastating to the region. Sure, maybe you can buy cheap appliances that don't last that long anyway. But all the GM workers and steel workers and so forth are just SOL and education doesn't do a damn thing for them. They're not going to be making iphone apps (not that apps are all that lucrative anyway). Economists / policymakers have lied to us; there's few benefits to globalization and there's a total lack of a meaningful employment policy to replace lost jobs with jobs of equal quality. But hey, Walmart may be hiring! And we wonder why people who worked in manufacturing, at Carrier [2], or at Oreo [3], aren't enthusiastic about free trade or its promoters. [1] http://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/ http://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/ [2] http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a44548/indiana-factory-outsourcing-manufacturing/ http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a44548/in... [3] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-oreos-nabisco-nafta-tpp-mondelez-perspec-0330-20160329-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-ore...

gonvaled 10y ago
> there's few benefits to globalization There are benefits in globalization. There are big problems with inequality. Do not conflate one with the other: globalization is unstoppable, because technology is unstoppable. The whole world must slowly converge to a uniform (richer) standard of living. But that will help few people if we allow those riches to be concentrated in very few hands. Fighting globalization is fighting the wrong enemy: if you (by some miraculous change) are able to remove your country from the globalized world, your country would become poorer. And there is no guarantee that the wealth will be better distributed: the early eighteen centuries economies were not globalized and inequality was a big issue too (bringing about the theory of communism, for example) Globalization does not require inequality. Non globalization does not guarantee shared wealth. We need to fight for globalization and wealth distribution, which is what will guarantee the best standard of living for the whole population.

by x0x0 10y ago

gonvaled 10y ago

> there's few benefits to globalization There are benefits in globalization. There are big problems with inequality. Do not conflate one with the other: globalization is unstoppable, because technology is unstoppable. The whole world must slowly converge to a uniform (richer) standard of living. But that will help few people if we allow those riches to be concentrated in very few hands. Fighting globalization is fighting the wrong enemy: if you (by some miraculous change) are able to remove your country from the globalized world, your country would become poorer. And there is no guarantee that the wealth will be better distributed: the early eighteen centuries economies were not globalized and inequality was a big issue too (bringing about the theory of communism, for example) Globalization does not require inequality. Non globalization does not guarantee shared wealth. We need to fight for globalization and wealth distribution, which is what will guarantee the best standard of living for the whole population.