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> We wanted ever-increasing returns for shareholders And ever-decreasing prices for consumers. Don’t forget that! Free trade results in more goods for everyo
by eadmund 2y ago
> We wanted ever-increasing returns for shareholders
And ever-decreasing prices for consumers. Don’t forget that!
Free trade results in more goods for everyone, by enabling different places to focus on what they do best.
> while doing nothing on the whole to retrain the workforce.
I completely agree that some more attention needs to be paid to retraining. The answer to disappearing jobs is to prepare folks for new ones, not to artificially preserve the old ones. One has to be careful, though, not to distort the market for retraining itself.
- ryandrake 2y ago> And ever-decreasing prices for consumers. Don’t forget that! Except that's not happening for major purchases. Housing is more expensive than ever. Education is more expensive than ever. Healthcare is more expensive than ever. Cars and Trucks are more expensive than ever. Besides taxes, the above are the biggest slice of the consumer's wallet, and those prices have almost never decreased. Shareholder returns keep going up, up, and up though.
- michaelt 2y agoAgree that housing, education and healthcare are more expensive than ever. But I lived through the 1980s and let me tell you, in many ways consumer goods are better and cheaper than ever before. It was just normal and expected that cars would have holes rust in them, and sunroofs that would leak. A home computer was an exotic rarity, and a monitor with a 15" viewable area was considered big. There was an entire industry dedicated to renting TVs, not just because of the high upfront cost but also because they often broke down, and the rental company would provide the repair or replacement.
- eadmund 2y ago> Housing is more expensive than ever. Education is more expensive than ever. Healthcare is more expensive than ever. Housing, education and healthcare are to a very great extent to amenable to globalisation, since houses have to be built on a local plot of land, education is for most folks done in-country and healthcare too is delivered locally. Not that all three, too, are subject to massive amounts of subsidies. > Cars and Trucks are more expensive than ever. A Henry J in 1950 was $1,299 (according to https://www.gobankingrates.com/saving-money/car/heres-much-car-today-would-cost-year-were-born/ https://www.gobankingrates.com/saving-money/car/heres-much-c...), or $16,934 in 2024 dollars; a Nissan Versa is $17,820 today. While more expensive, that doesn’t seem crazy, just 5.23% more — and of course that Versa is a much better car.
- greenchair 2y agofree trade sounds great in theory. unfortunately what we see are imbalances for a myriad of reasons for example one of the largest economies government owns or heavily subsidizes companies or entire industries in order to maintain control.
- alex_lav 2y ago> And ever-decreasing prices for consumers This is more of a hope than a reality. The trickle down economics logic. “We promise it’ll be good.”