Globalization made America very very rich just that the wealth was not shared with the Americans
Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class
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Re: Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class
#12I find this kind of article hilarious. "Numbers go up! You're not allowed to feel poor or think that there's a problem! Our number is bigger so you must be rich!" I saw this 10-20 years ago when economists were telling people that inflation is low despite their feelings about inflation. "Our math is correct and you ignorant folks should be grateful for how this economy is managed." Just because you can produce equati…
That goes both ways, though. Just because you feel a certain way doesn't mean that's how it is. A lot of people's perceptions of economic performance are more connected to their opinion of the President than to any actual facts.
How people feel matters, of course, but that doesn't mean that the numbers are wrong if they don't match. People's feelings about inflation are not ground truth about inflation, just ground truth about feelings.
Re: Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class
#13Globalization played a role but so did bad policy. When the Obama administration didn’t respond to China dumping below-cost solar on the US, I know many technologists who lost their job and career in the US because they couldn’t compete with companies that didn’t have to follow environmental protection rules. Americans are addicted to artificially low prices that put the burden of costs on future generations who have…
You act as if it's an active, deliberate choice to only buy the cheapest possible thing.
The hollowing out of the middle class means most Americans are forcibly dependent on the cheapest possible goods because they don't have disposable income.
It's a vicious cycle and the average consumer is not at fault. Most people would like to buy domestically, but domestic goods are either simply not available or not affordable.
Re: Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class
#14I find this kind of article hilarious. "Numbers go up! You're not allowed to feel poor or think that there's a problem! Our number is bigger so you must be rich!" I saw this 10-20 years ago when economists were telling people that inflation is low despite their feelings about inflation. "Our math is correct and you ignorant folks should be grateful for how this economy is managed." Just because you can produce equati…
Yeah this completely ignores the fact that many people would rather work on making things with their hands that they can physically see, rather than pushing numbers around on a spreadsheet.
This article ignores alienation, cost of living, social atomization, enshittification, the police state, and many other factors that contribute to everyone feeling like shit. The liberal intelligentsia need to learn that voters don't care about their numbers and charts, education has been hollowed out and the populace is going to respond to material promises and aggression. Not "hmm well did you consult my graph??"
Re: Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class
#15Globalization played a role but so did bad policy. When the Obama administration didn’t respond to China dumping below-cost solar on the US, I know many technologists who lost their job and career in the US because they couldn’t compete with companies that didn’t have to follow environmental protection rules. Americans are addicted to artificially low prices that put the burden of costs on future generations who have…
What exact job title was lost in the US because of Chinese solar manufacturing and mining? By your logic, Tesla (equally dependent on Chinese pollution and mining) wouldn't employ any technologists.
I've purchased equipment from scrapped solar factories in the Bay Area. Tons of people lost jobs and not just technologists.
Re: Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class
#16Cheap labor is a drug. And the west one way or another got hooked on it. But it should be the opposite - labor should be relatively expensive or we will never innovate or automate things.
Re: Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class
#17The first comment asks the important question: Why, "despite all of this prosperity, do so many Americans still feel angry, disillusioned and frankly, even cheated"? One thing which can't be captured by these numbers (no matter how accurate) is when people end up settling for something perceived to be of lower value. So for instance, it might be that my income has gone up faster than the cost of the things I'm buying…
> One thing which can't be captured by these numbers (no matter how accurate) is when people end up settling for something perceived to be of lower value
This is always going to happen so long as wealth inequality isn't addressed.
Re: Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class
#18I find this kind of article hilarious. "Numbers go up! You're not allowed to feel poor or think that there's a problem! Our number is bigger so you must be rich!" I saw this 10-20 years ago when economists were telling people that inflation is low despite their feelings about inflation. "Our math is correct and you ignorant folks should be grateful for how this economy is managed." Just because you can produce equati…
That goes both ways, though. Just because you feel a certain way doesn't mean that's how it is. A lot of people's perceptions of economic performance are more connected to their opinion of the President than to any actual facts. How people feel matters, of course, but that doesn't mean that the numbers are wrong if they don't match. People's feelings about inflation are not ground truth about inflation, just ground t…
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Re: Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class
#19and re-industrialization won't save it we can't possibly compete with (much) cheaper overseas labor, tariffs will do nothing but exclude the US from this cheap labor while other countries continue to benefit from it eventually more of it will be automated anyway, and areas that saw booms from cheap labor will face similar class crises there's also this idea that maybe our standard of living needs to regress some ("2…
I recently was looking at a 4 speaker switch on monoprice. It was $20 two months ago. Now it's $40. It occurred to me that the parts in this speaker switch amounted to be $2 of raw parts. The simplest of plastic pieces with basic copper wires and metal screws. Yet they were shipping it here and forcing American consumers to pay $20 in taxes instead of possibly claiming an almost $36 profit margin by paying $2 of taxes on raw parts and assembling it here. Now I know it hasn't been long enough but these are the types of opportunities that are now available in the economy. If an assembling plant is there then that creates opportunities downstream to in-source even the raw parts too. Anyway that's just been where my mind goes about these things recently. I generally support free markets.
Re: Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class
#20I find this kind of article hilarious. "Numbers go up! You're not allowed to feel poor or think that there's a problem! Our number is bigger so you must be rich!" I saw this 10-20 years ago when economists were telling people that inflation is low despite their feelings about inflation. "Our math is correct and you ignorant folks should be grateful for how this economy is managed." Just because you can produce equati…
I'm not an economist, but it It sounds like you're maybe conflating (mathematical models of economics) with (economics statistics).
It's one thing for their models to suck at fitting historical data or making bad predictions.
But I think your real beef is that their empirical statistics are touted as characterizing the middle class' lived experience, but don't?