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We were sold down the river by our own elites, particularly on Wall Street and with the full complicity of the Economics Departments of the west. "Comparative
by recursivedoubts 6y ago
We were sold down the river by our own elites, particularly on Wall Street and with the full complicity of the Economics Departments of the west.
"Comparative Advantage", something something about corn and wool, meanwhile the whole supply chain was moved to China, our middle class was decimated and we went into tremendous amounts of debt to pretend everything was fine...
Left, right... whatever. The elites have failed us.
- babaganoosh89 6y agoThe problem isn't comparative advantage, it's that the US left the poor states to languish with poor education. So instead of higher quality manufacturing / blue collar jobs, non-educated folks got minimum wage service jobs.
- recursivedoubts 6y agoThe US is at or near the top of all western countries on educational spending per student: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp
- formerly_proven 6y agoThe US also has the highest spending in health care per capita. Spending does not equal outcomes.
- recursivedoubts 6y agoYes, I agree. But the comment implied neglect, which is false. Our education system is a mess, but it's not due to neglect, and it doesn't have anything to do with manufacturing being shipped abroad. As a side note, the US has the second highest public spending per capita (second only to Norway, last I checked). Our Government spends more per citizen than all but one "socialist" country. We then of course spend another doubling of that in private expenditures, and, yes, get worse outcomes. The US is in a very bad spot.
- greedo 6y agoHow much of that public spending is on the prison industrial complex? On "law and order?" Not all public spending is equal.
- recursivedoubts 6y agoThat is public spending on healthcare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...
- s1artibartfast 6y agoWhile I am generally sympathetic to the education and healthcare points, I would be interested in seeing the public spending per capita after defense spending.
- recursivedoubts 6y agoI should have been clearer: that is public spending on healthcare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...
- s1artibartfast 6y agoThanks for clarifying.
- anonunivgrad 6y agoThere are not enough "higher quality manufacturing / blue collar jobs." The US has embraced an economic model of outsourcing manufacturing and shifting to an economy based around intellectual property, finance, and other knowledge work. What's left is low-skill, low-pay service jobs, where outsourcing is not possible, but where technology is instead the threat. And knowledge jobs are jobs for smart people. Most people are not smart enough to do those jobs and no amount of money spent on education (the US spends more than almost every other western country, at every level) can change that.
- jhallenworld 6y agoYeah, think very carefully before having kids. What kind of life will they have in this country if they are not technical elites of some kind? In the old days, you always needed labor for the farm or factory, but not anymore..
- 908B64B197 6y ago> the US left the poor states to languish with poor education Why didn't state funding pick up the tab?
- nikanj 6y agoThe stock market and housing prices are higher than ever, so a large part of the population is doing good. Not just the elites have benefited from the spoils, people with retirement portfolios and paid-off houses are sitting nice and flush.
- boringg 6y agoAlso a pretty broad brush to paint a whole "class" of people that being the "elites".
- habosa 6y ago84% of wealth in the stock market is in the hands of the top 10% Not sure about housing.
- xyzzyz 6y agoCan you provide source for these numbers?
- renewiltord 6y agoIt's always interesting to me when people react like this to an internet comment without sharing any research they did themselves. To me a forum like this is like when I'd be sitting around in uni wondering aloud about some problem and someone will say "Well, maybe if you use the fact that the functions which invert the sign of the √2 and √3 parts in Q(√2, √3) are automorphisms, then you can see that the group containing them and their composition is just Z2×Z2". The truth of that part isn't important. It's the fact that it's a good faith hint. It's my job to go find the truth given this mild heuristic. They're the ones doing me the favour so I have to contribute in order to get more information. In this case, I can attempt to find an error in the proof or to ask clarification. But if I were to ask them to write out a proof then I'm being a fool and I'll get fewer hints from them in future. I noticed that most people who really know their field don't cite their assertions. It makes sense. So now I'm not surprised when people don't provide a citation. It's just a hint. They didn't sign up to be my tutor.
- iphorde 6y agoThose Elites are back in power in a few days. Enjoy it. America voted for it.
- adamnemecek 6y agoThe elites have been in power since idk when.
- iphorde 6y agoRight, the one guy trying to knock it all down, you decide to vote out of office, because the Elites said he was racist. Bravo! Typical stupid Americans doing exactlt what the Elites want.
- gregkerzhner 6y agoI would say that Trump's ability to convince people he is knocking down the elites, and instead using the office to benefit both his elite self and his elite inner circle is his greatest hustle, but actually, its quiet an ordinary move that elites have been pulling since the start of time. I feel like to really knock down the elites, you need someone who is not elite. However, anyone who rises to this kind of status by definition becomes elite even if they weren't before, so it's kind of a self fulfilling failure. True revolution can probably only come from many non elite people seeking the same goal. This kind of revolution would most likely be squashed by someone elite.
- iphorde 6y agoSo you're a radical. You want revolution, not reform. Got it.
- gregkerzhner 6y agoHey now, I never said I wanted anything! But it's hard to believe that removing the elites from power is going to be a simple reform. The most powerful, established and connected people in government aren't going to simply walk away, it would take a major disruption.
- viburnum 6y agoComparative advantage never made any sense. It's a model of a world without technology, without supply chains, without increasing returns to scale, and only two countries.
- whatshisface 6y agoYou sort of had me until the last claim (no more than two countries), I know for a fact their models are more advanced than that. Any actual economist care to chime in and explain comparative advantage?
- icemelt8 6y agoThis is an amazing article, which provides both views https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/comparativeadvantage.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/comparativeadvantage.as...
- beefman 6y agoThere are models with more than two countries, but no consensus on which to use. Most economists couldn't name one of these models, or anyone who has ever studied the question.
- blackrock 6y agoYour politicians failed you. You vote for them, and you feel good if they win. But then what happens? Nothing. The rich keeps getting richer. While the poor stays poor. And the middle class becomes poorer. The elites just wants to make more money. And what do they do? They buy out the politicians, in order to keep themselves rich. And what’s the biggest lie that they’ve sold you? That trickle-down-economics works for everyone.
- esoterica 6y agoWho is the "you" here? Given that this is a tech focused website, I bet a lot of people on here have done very well in recent years. Hard to consider the 20- and 30- something year olds making $500k/year at a FAANG or a few million dollars when the unicorn they work for IPOs an oppressed class.
- cratermoon 6y agoAnd yet they are. Petite bourgeoisie and all that.
- l3v3ll 6y ago20- and 30- somethings at FAANG is hardly a picture of America as a whole. Also if 20- and 30- somethings ignore the rest of our neighbors in other fields because “F you got mine”, we’re hardly better than the elitists.
- catawbasam 6y agoBetter than the elitists? They are the elite.
- l3v3ll 6y agoHa! I was going to edit my post with exactly that, that is correct. 500K/year is probably top 2%?
- 6y ago
- roenxi 6y agoReplacing all the financial and political elites is a good idea, they have demonstrated incompetence at running the economy. But it is too easy to blame them and overlook the role of the public. Particularly in politics, where it cannot be overlooked that the voters vote for whoever they want. This didn't creep up on the US - this was a 30-40 year process overseen by the Boomers which anyone could have seen coming had they looked. Many did, it was obvious China was the future. It is well worth being sober, realistic and evidence based about what they did and whether their successes and failures were correctly learned by the next generation. I think the 30s and under have learned a lot more lessons about the environment and social theory than developed an understanding of why China is becoming the pre-eminent world power, why it is led by Communists and whether the US should have done things differently.
- jhallenworld 6y agoI think this all started as some kind of national security consensus that we would help China by having free trade with them. It worked in that millions of Chinese have been uplifted (of course this is vast oversimplification: they helped themselves and many other countries also trade with them), but has definitely failed if we ever thought to make the Chinese government less authoritarian as a side effect. It was definitely paid for by American workers. I don't know what economists were smoking when they thought the entire blue collar workforce would be retrained into better jobs, but that's the theory they kept forwarding. I've also heard that this has helped America by keeping inflation low. What they mean when they say "inflation" is almost always "wage inflation". You can see the mindset in the Covid relief debates- God Forbid we give people more money than the slave wages they get from corporations- they might not work! Corporations might have to pay more in wages!
- magicsmoke 6y agoIn a sense this has kept inflation low. China's factories and population can produce more cheap knick knacks than America can ever consume. Instead of newly printed money chasing after an inexhaustible supply of things to order from Amazon, it chases after things that are actually limited in quantity like land, stocks, gold, and bitcoin.
- esoterica 6y agoWhy the obsession with manufacturing jobs? Unemployment was still low (at least pre-covid) and total compensation, while not growing as fast as some people would like, is still higher than ever.
- slv77 6y agoManufacturing requires the ability to marshal human, technological and financial resources at scale. The US policy for the last 50 years has been to invest heavily in the technological and financial capabilities of the equation and outsource the human capability to other countries. COVID-19 has made it apparent that there are significant advantages to having the operational capabilities to organize human resources at scale. The US, for example, was unable to staff an effective test and trace program even while a significant percentage of its population sat idle or to mobilize healthcare resources to hot spots. Effectively the US traded 300,000 lives because the US couldn't effectively organize 300,000 people quickly.
- jdkee 6y agoAnd we can't vaccinate our population in an efficient manner either.
- esoterica 6y agoThat has to do with state capacity, which is terrible in the present day United States, not manufacturing ability. Having a lot of factories on-shore is not going to magically make the government competent.
- mc32 6y agoDems used to be pro labor, Repubs used to be pro business (on balance, but kind of served both when it made sense). In the ‘80s Dems saw being default pro business was more lucrative and jumped ship. Now both parties play both hands and workers get shafted. Oh but the Dems are pro workers! No, they are not. They pretend they are. The only ones who are pro worker also sold out (Bernie) and went globalist —Compare his positions in the 80s vs now.
- anonunivgrad 6y agoDemocrats distract their base with identity politics (free sex changes! defund the police! and such woke nonsense) while their wealthy supporters get rich selling the country to China.
- Dylan16807 6y agoMedical care and not being harassed/shot are also important, and the Democratic party doesn't seem particularly enthusiastic about those things either.
- anonunivgrad 6y agoYes, the actual socialists and other economic leftists are the big losers right now. Biden admin will push idpol nonsense to the extreme while not delivering anything worthwhile for the economic left. Next four years will be a feeding frenzy for the sociopaths of America.
- diydsp 6y agoThose two items do take a prominent place in the dem platform [0] Several large-ish departments [1] have been persuaded to make budgetary changes in regards to the lite version of defund the police, i.e. transfer certain operations to medical specialists such as mental illness, etc. don't have time to dig as deep into dem support of taxpayer-funded healthcare, but here is one group to pay attention to because they seem to be very realistic, even pragmatic about it. Some interesting podcast interviews coming out of their media: https://pnhp.org/news-category/members-in-the-news/ https://pnhp.org/news-category/members-in-the-news/ https://pnhp.org/kitchen-table-campaign/ https://pnhp.org/kitchen-table-campaign/ [3] https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/07/us/new-york-city-police-funding-social-services/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/07/us/new-york-city-police-fundi... [2] https://www.npr.org/2020/12/10/944938471/minneapolis-shifts-8-million-in-police-funding-but-keeps-force-at-current-level https://www.npr.org/2020/12/10/944938471/minneapolis-shifts-... [1] https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/civilians-could-replace-police-officers-on-certain-calls-in-fort-worth/287-e1341f87-463e-43cc-86df-438869568b75 https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/civilians-could-repl... [0] https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/ https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/