5 ms·

Yeah, emotions like "I wish I could afford to buy food."

llamaimperative 2y ago
You can experience that emotion and then logic your way to "it probably doesn't make sense then to vote for massive tariffs." If you don't logic your way to that next point, then yeah, you're making a bit of an emotionally-tainted decision.
- tarsinge 2y ago
  Except voting for massive tariffs make sense from an environmental and workers point of view. Logic instead of emotions was lacking in the democrats camp too.
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    Massive tariffs will drive up costs and lead to worldwide economic instability. It didn’t work in 1929 and it’s not going to work in 2025.
    - tarsinge 2y ago
      But driving up the costs is a good thing in the big picture because negative externalities are artificially suppressed, the environmental, social and geopolitical cost of having cheap electronics and crap from China is way more high than anticipated. 1929 was another world, and economists have yet to update their view to the 21st century, GDP only is not the end goal.
      - llamaimperative 2y ago
        This is not the bargain people made in voting for Trump.
      - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
        I didn't realize a vote for Trump was a vote for selfless austerity. Macro-economics is hard, but seizing up world trade is one well known easy way to ignite an actual depression, not just the kind-of-but-not-really recession we had under Biden.
    - normalaccess 2y ago
      I'm ok with this because it's going to keep American money in America. The cheep prices we are used to are fueled by slave labor. That Chinese hammer that is $5 less at wal-mart was produced in a sweat shop by underpaid and overworked workers. The tariffs level the playing field and allow us to afford to produce goods at home by effectively banning slave goods. Besides, when you produce local its better for the environment because you're not sending everything on massive cargo ships.
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    > make sense from an environmental and workers point of view from an environmental point of view, yes, by reducing consumption; but that's not why people voted for Trump -- they did because they thought it would lower their prices at the supermarket. it won't do that.
- pfannkuchen 2y ago
  Manufacturing jobs in the past paid much better than the sort of jobs that people in the rust belt are doing more often today. If we assume that the manufacturing increase we would inevitably see in the presence of protectionist tariffs end up in those same places, then that would help make food and other things more affordable for those people. Whether manufacturing ends up there or elsewhere is of course not actually guaranteed, the shipping technology and environmental laws were very different when the old manufacturing centers were established. I don’t understand why people are so quick to conclude that others are very, very stupid in this case, as opposed to having interests that don’t align with one’s own and which are difficult to relate to absent the sorts of multi generational experiences these people have had.
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    You’re the only one making assumptions here. You have no clue what my interests are or my background is. Assumption 1: That Americans want those manufacturing jobs 2: Those manufacturing jobs still exist and are not simply automated away 3: People will still want to buy those goods at 30-1000% higher price points 4: That the onshoring of the lowest-quality jobs on the planet will pay enough to overcome the new inflated prices of everyday goods I assume that people don't know what they're talking about on this subject because 100% of people I’ve seen defending the policy make dumb arguments, while approximately every single economist on the planet argues the opposite.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    Not saying they're stupid but that they're easily misled. Manufacturing jobs are not coming back to the US in large quantities. Period. Even if you apply tariffs to force large companies to leave China, they'll go to other countries -- India, Vietnam, etc. The one thing that might work is to provide huge tax incentives to entice foreign companies to build factories in the US -- but that has proven to have limited effect -- remember Foxconn supposed huge investment in a factory in the US? The only place this _might_ work is in high-end chips, such as TSMC -- but those are not the "manufacturing jobs" in Ohio and PA that disappeared. But mostly, the manufacturing jobs won't come back because companies are rushing to replace them with machines as quickly as possible. So sure, a factory might open in the US, but it won't employ many people.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
Except that at the the lower income bracket, there are many more Democrats than Republicans (58% to 36% according to Pew[0]). So I don't think the election turned on poor people not being able to even afford food. [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/partisanship-by-family-income-home-ownership-union-membership-and-veteran-status/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/partisanship...
- ComplexSystems 2y ago
  That's from 2023, and it sure as hell isn't how people voted this time: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1535295/presidential-election-exit-polls-share-votes-income-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1535295/presidential-ele...
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    Fair point. It is more nuanced this time. For income < $30K, more people voted D than R, though for $30K-50K more voted R. And $30-$50K could be "poor" depending on where you live and whether you have kids, so a little hard to tell. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-polls https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-polls
    - mapt 2y ago
      These particular nominal distinctions are losing meaning as everything but technology continues to inflate. An income of $30k is not survivable where I live (it's less than rent + transportation to work) without subsidy from family who joined the property owning class in the 1970's - essentially homeless but for charity. It's not that you're "poor" if you make less than $30k, it doesn't depend on whether you're supporting family, it's that it's not possible to legally exist as a single person household working full-time at $15/hr; You are either receiving charity or you're securing your person through some sort of criminal act (squatting, living in your car, living in a park, sleeping in the breakroom at work, living in an illegal basement apartment or having five roommates in an illegal sublet), or you're delving into the 60-80 hour workweek. Provisions which trigger at the federal poverty line for a single person not receiving private charity, require that you have been involved in criminalized living arrangements for a long time, and also that you have some sort of fixed address by which to reach you.
talldayo 2y ago
Thing is, people will say stuff like this and them foam at the mouth at the mere mention of the phrase "food stamps". Methinks this sudden empathy is a load of crocodile tears.
- themaninthedark 2y ago
  People don't want food stamps, charity or a tax credit. They want good paying jobs.
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    Good paying jobs went away with Reagonmics and offshore manufacturing. Trump isn’t bringing them back (neither is Harris). It’s a feature, not a bug, of capitalism. Also Elon “Efficiency Czar” is all about cutting jobs not creating them.
    - maroonblazer 2y ago
      >It’s a feature, not a bug, of capitalism. It's not a feature of capitalism - we've had capitalism without sending manufacturing overseas for decades. Rather, it's a feature of globalization, which is a tactic that isn't specific to capitalism.
      - insane_dreamer 2y ago
        Wrong. The only reason capitalism didn’t do it earlier was because it wasn’t profitable to do so. It is absolutely specific to and a feature of capitalism, because socialism by definition concerned with the welfare of workers, whereas capitalism is by definition concerned with the welfare of shareholders.
        stcroixx 2y ago
        The aim of the tariffs is to make it unprofitable again. Majority of people want this.
mike50 2y ago
Food is so subsidized in America that this is a joke argument.

You can experience that emotion and then logic your way to "it probably doesn't make sense then to vote for massive tariffs." If you don't logic your way to that next point, then yeah, you're making a bit of an emotionally-tainted decision.

tarsinge 2y ago
Except voting for massive tariffs make sense from an environmental and workers point of view. Logic instead of emotions was lacking in the democrats camp too.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  Massive tariffs will drive up costs and lead to worldwide economic instability. It didn’t work in 1929 and it’s not going to work in 2025.
  - tarsinge 2y ago
    But driving up the costs is a good thing in the big picture because negative externalities are artificially suppressed, the environmental, social and geopolitical cost of having cheap electronics and crap from China is way more high than anticipated. 1929 was another world, and economists have yet to update their view to the 21st century, GDP only is not the end goal.
    - llamaimperative 2y ago
      This is not the bargain people made in voting for Trump.
    - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      I didn't realize a vote for Trump was a vote for selfless austerity. Macro-economics is hard, but seizing up world trade is one well known easy way to ignite an actual depression, not just the kind-of-but-not-really recession we had under Biden.
  - normalaccess 2y ago
    I'm ok with this because it's going to keep American money in America. The cheep prices we are used to are fueled by slave labor. That Chinese hammer that is $5 less at wal-mart was produced in a sweat shop by underpaid and overworked workers. The tariffs level the playing field and allow us to afford to produce goods at home by effectively banning slave goods. Besides, when you produce local its better for the environment because you're not sending everything on massive cargo ships.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  > make sense from an environmental and workers point of view from an environmental point of view, yes, by reducing consumption; but that's not why people voted for Trump -- they did because they thought it would lower their prices at the supermarket. it won't do that.
pfannkuchen 2y ago
Manufacturing jobs in the past paid much better than the sort of jobs that people in the rust belt are doing more often today. If we assume that the manufacturing increase we would inevitably see in the presence of protectionist tariffs end up in those same places, then that would help make food and other things more affordable for those people. Whether manufacturing ends up there or elsewhere is of course not actually guaranteed, the shipping technology and environmental laws were very different when the old manufacturing centers were established. I don’t understand why people are so quick to conclude that others are very, very stupid in this case, as opposed to having interests that don’t align with one’s own and which are difficult to relate to absent the sorts of multi generational experiences these people have had.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  You’re the only one making assumptions here. You have no clue what my interests are or my background is. Assumption 1: That Americans want those manufacturing jobs 2: Those manufacturing jobs still exist and are not simply automated away 3: People will still want to buy those goods at 30-1000% higher price points 4: That the onshoring of the lowest-quality jobs on the planet will pay enough to overcome the new inflated prices of everyday goods I assume that people don't know what they're talking about on this subject because 100% of people I’ve seen defending the policy make dumb arguments, while approximately every single economist on the planet argues the opposite.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  Not saying they're stupid but that they're easily misled. Manufacturing jobs are not coming back to the US in large quantities. Period. Even if you apply tariffs to force large companies to leave China, they'll go to other countries -- India, Vietnam, etc. The one thing that might work is to provide huge tax incentives to entice foreign companies to build factories in the US -- but that has proven to have limited effect -- remember Foxconn supposed huge investment in a factory in the US? The only place this _might_ work is in high-end chips, such as TSMC -- but those are not the "manufacturing jobs" in Ohio and PA that disappeared. But mostly, the manufacturing jobs won't come back because companies are rushing to replace them with machines as quickly as possible. So sure, a factory might open in the US, but it won't employ many people.

insane_dreamer 2y ago

Except that at the the lower income bracket, there are many more Democrats than Republicans (58% to 36% according to Pew[0]). So I don't think the election turned on poor people not being able to even afford food. [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/partisanship-by-family-income-home-ownership-union-membership-and-veteran-status/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/partisanship...

ComplexSystems 2y ago
That's from 2023, and it sure as hell isn't how people voted this time: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1535295/presidential-election-exit-polls-share-votes-income-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1535295/presidential-ele...
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  Fair point. It is more nuanced this time. For income < $30K, more people voted D than R, though for $30K-50K more voted R. And $30-$50K could be "poor" depending on where you live and whether you have kids, so a little hard to tell. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-polls https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-polls
  - mapt 2y ago
    These particular nominal distinctions are losing meaning as everything but technology continues to inflate. An income of $30k is not survivable where I live (it's less than rent + transportation to work) without subsidy from family who joined the property owning class in the 1970's - essentially homeless but for charity. It's not that you're "poor" if you make less than $30k, it doesn't depend on whether you're supporting family, it's that it's not possible to legally exist as a single person household working full-time at $15/hr; You are either receiving charity or you're securing your person through some sort of criminal act (squatting, living in your car, living in a park, sleeping in the breakroom at work, living in an illegal basement apartment or having five roommates in an illegal sublet), or you're delving into the 60-80 hour workweek. Provisions which trigger at the federal poverty line for a single person not receiving private charity, require that you have been involved in criminalized living arrangements for a long time, and also that you have some sort of fixed address by which to reach you.

talldayo 2y ago

Thing is, people will say stuff like this and them foam at the mouth at the mere mention of the phrase "food stamps". Methinks this sudden empathy is a load of crocodile tears.

themaninthedark 2y ago
People don't want food stamps, charity or a tax credit. They want good paying jobs.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  Good paying jobs went away with Reagonmics and offshore manufacturing. Trump isn’t bringing them back (neither is Harris). It’s a feature, not a bug, of capitalism. Also Elon “Efficiency Czar” is all about cutting jobs not creating them.
  - maroonblazer 2y ago
    >It’s a feature, not a bug, of capitalism. It's not a feature of capitalism - we've had capitalism without sending manufacturing overseas for decades. Rather, it's a feature of globalization, which is a tactic that isn't specific to capitalism.
    - insane_dreamer 2y ago
      Wrong. The only reason capitalism didn’t do it earlier was because it wasn’t profitable to do so. It is absolutely specific to and a feature of capitalism, because socialism by definition concerned with the welfare of workers, whereas capitalism is by definition concerned with the welfare of shareholders.
      - stcroixx 2y ago
        The aim of the tariffs is to make it unprofitable again. Majority of people want this.

mike50 2y ago

Food is so subsidized in America that this is a joke argument.