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Trump really thinks America is in the 1950's. He thinks people want to work at factories doing manual labor. He doesn't understand that we DON'T want to work at
by vFunct 2y ago
Trump really thinks America is in the 1950's. He thinks people want to work at factories doing manual labor. He doesn't understand that we DON'T want to work at factories. Americans like our plush corporate office jobs building intellectual property. We aren't oxen doing physical labor.
And we designed it that way. We pay thousands of dollars to each citizen in our public schools to teach them calculus, literature, world history, and science, so that they DON'T work at factories doing manual labor like we were oxen. We're supposed to be doing more valuable jobs in intellectual property and services.
It's going to be hard lesson to be learned by Trump and his working class supporters when the inflation hits them because our economy doesn't have any workers that want to work at factories, but it'll have to be a lesson they learn the hard way.
The correct economy is to let people do labor they're best at. If a foreigner can make a shirt cheaper than an American can, LET THEM. Our economy is already taken by the people that design the shirts.
- jiggawatts 2y ago> It's going to be hard lesson to be learned by Trump and his working class supporters They won’t learn any lessons. The impacts will be felt years from now, when the Democrat are in power, and… you know the rest.
- fzeroracer 2y agoWell, the unfortunate beauty of touching the incredibly hot stove of Tariffs is that the pain is immediate and obvious. So assuming that these tariffs go through as is, we'll immediately launch into one of the worst recessions we've seen with price increases unlike anything Americans are used to.
- jiggawatts 2y agoA tariff of some +x% doesn’t cause a +x% increase in retail prices. The ratio is somewhere between 2:1 and 10:1 for most products, depending on the markup, local value add, taxes, etc… The real damage is business uncertainty, inefficient capital allocation, etc… all of which takes years to fully impact the economy.
- fzeroracer 2y agoThis is only true in the ordinary situation of using tariffs. Such as targeting specific markets or exports in order to bolster the local market. Tariffs on literally everything have an immediate outsized impact as businesses need to rapidly readjust and renegotiate prices on everything. Not only that but there's the second order effects too, such as Trump's interactions with Canada resulting in destroying tourist and seasonal travel from up north to the border states.
- quickthrowman 2y agoUncertainty will be priced into the price of things moving forward, I’ve already started adding 10-15% to my BoM over today’s prices to account for the possibility of future price increases and I’m definitely not the only one.
- soulofmischief 2y agoThese tariffs are a disaster, but this is is quite a neoliberal take. So if we aren't the oxen, who is? Vietnam? And that's morally acceptable?
- vFunct 2y agoYes. They - or other poor countries - are. And it's their responsibility to grow their citizenry in a neoliberal world. Economics doesn't care about liberal concern tools. China eliminated poverty through neoliberalism. The rest of the world can, too. This is the benefit of neoliberalism: it lifts the world out of poverty through free trade and self-selected efficiency.
- gtsop 2y agoBecause we all know there is no amount of factory manual labour going on in China. Did you even think for a second before writting this?
- vFunct 2y agoOh you prefer China went back to Mao's Cultural Revolution agrarian economy from the 60's before neoliberalism? Did YOU think for a second about what you wrote?
- gtsop 2y agoYou said america worked hard to get rid of manual factory jobs and then you gave the example of China as a state that followed their neoliberal example. But China is the Earths factory and they have hundreds of millions doing manual factory work. You contradicted your own arguments. Not sure what you are asking me right now.
- vFunct 2y agoI specifically said China eliminated poverty, not factory jobs. Not sure where you got that from. The neoliberal trajectory is a gradual growth from agrarian economy to a services/IP economy. Factories are a step along that way.
- Miner49er 2y agoWe have plenty of workers that want that kind of work, we're just deporting a good chunk of them.
- Loughla 2y agoWe have less than zero workers who want to do the physical labor of factory jobs for prices paid to workers in places like China and Vietnam.
- vFunct 2y agoEspecially given the luxury lifestyle that even the poorest suburban 20-something American male lives in today. They get to play video games all day and watch any movie at home with any food from around the world that can show up at their doorstep of their parents home at a moments notice. The aristocrats of 150 years ago could NEVER imagine such luxuries. And Trump expects our population of suburban aristocrats to work hard at factories...
- charlie90 2y agoYes. Outsource the manufacturing. We have important intellectual work to do like optimizing ad sales.
- rozap 2y agoHey now, we're also using AI to automate debt collection phone calls.
- tootie 2y agoHe has repeatedly invoked the 1890s actually. Big fan of McKinley.
- iJohnDoe 2y agoI agree with this. People seem to forget that factories and other manual labor positions were hard to fill. No one wanted to do them anymore in America. I don’t remember the timing, but there were articles about the whole situation. Well, those jobs went to other countries. Bush Jr. was all about outsourcing to India and other countries. The India population were thrilled to take office gigs for Microsoft and Google and any other tech company. The whole “put me to work” in middle-America doesn’t exist anymore. They don’t want to do that type of work. I do think a missed opportunity is not increasing defense manufacturing in the US. That could mean a lot of jobs and skill-based jobs. NASA is another failed opportunity where it could be a huge skill and labor opportunity for America. I remember the thousands of workers on the shuttle program being devastated. I’m not saying we need another shuttle program, but the next evolution of NASA, aerospace, and defense would be great for jobs and America. We have no one left thinking about the long-term big picture for America - and we now have a president trying to destroy America. Any current politicians are focused on just staying in power, more so than they ever have. I think Bill Clinton was the last president to focus on America. Even Obama failed to deliver to the American people. He was too focused on drone strikes.
- threeseed 2y ago> I do think a missed opportunity is not increasing defense manufacturing in the US. They are trying to. But zero chance EU capitulates on this: https://www.reuters.com/world/us-officials-object-european-push-buy-weapons-locally-2025-04-02/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us-officials-object-european-p...
- watwut 2y agoObama was completely blocked by Republicans. That is when they started to oppose anything accross the aisle on principle.
- arp242 2y ago> Even Obama failed to deliver to the American people. He was too focused on drone strikes. I agree how Obama continued Bush's "war on terror" was a disappointment, but to state that as the reason for his relatively limited accomplishments is profoundly unserious. The Mitch McConnell's strategy was to do anything Obama did for no other reason than to make him look bad, because McConnell realised that Obama had the potential to be the most consequential president since FDR, with broad public support. They used every trick in the book to hold up votes, to not schedule votes, voting against popular policy they themselves supported just a few years ago out of principle, etc. I don't know how anyone could have forgotten this; the Republican party was not serious good faith participant in the democratic process long before Trump came along.
- 52-6F-62 2y agoPretty sure the broadcast plan as been to make more Americans oxen for the cart…