131–140 of 354 posts
What slowing wage growth? For the poorest the wages have essentially not increased for a long time right? It hasn’t even kept up with inflation. The recent bill actually makes it much worse.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Trump is out there creating the most regressive tax system via tariffs Tariffs incentivize domestic production. See the case of chicken tax and pickup trucks. While we do pay for tariffs now, later down the road we should not as more things would be made domestically. If you don’t do tariffs, there is no way to force producers to onshore.
The chicken tax encourages creative workarounds more than domestic production. Importing all the parts and putting them together in the US is production work, so fine. Importing chassis cab and putting a bed on in the US is silly, importing with seats discarded in the US is wasteful (Ford got dinged, but I don't think others did?) Who's making small cargo vans domestically? Nobody. So they're all 25% more expensive,…
So, it’s not that the tax doesn’t work, the issue is all the things around it that made it less effective.
What slowing wage growth? For the poorest the wages have essentially not increased for a long time right? It hasn’t even kept up with inflation. The recent bill actually makes it much worse.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There has been no start. You don’t build a factory because the President announced a tariff that he is also negotiating a trade deal around. You absolutely do once the math of tariffs makes your manufacturing abroad not competitive with onshored one. Will it apply for all categories of products? Probably not. However, it will definitely apply for many. I am not sure I understood your reply about the reasons.
> absolutely do once the math of tariffs makes your manufacturing abroad not competitive with onshored one If someone bet on e.g. our Japan tariffs three months ago, they lost money. (Nobody did. The types that take Trump at his word on tariffs aren’t making economically significant decisions.)
Regardless, tariffs as an instrument have their merit with Trump or without Trump. Strategically, US has to bring manufacturing (and as much of a supply chains) back, there is no way around it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like you support deporting illegals, as long as we also eliminate tariffs (?)
> sounds like you support deporting illegals, as long as we also eliminate tariffs I’m saying irrespective of what you and I believe, the current administration isn’t meaningfully deporting anyone. (To the extent I have policy views on this, it’s for coherence. You can’t do disruptive deportations while ignoring criminals all while launching on again off again tariffs which preclude both long-term domestic investment…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> love the argument that deporting illegals is meaningless Red herring. Nobody said this. My point is Trump isn’t deporting that many people. His numbers are not economically meaningful compared to tariffs. To the extent there are labour pools that would benefit from deportation, they’re geographically concentrated along the border. If Trump wanted to remove illegals from the American labour pool, he’d target employe…
The administration seems to be deliberately making the deportations as cruel and scary as possible (CECOT, Alligator Alcatraz, etc) as a means of deterring future illegal immigration and encouraging self deportation. I haven’t looked into the numbers to see how well that’s working or not, but focusing on deportations alone is missing two thirds of the picture. I’m not sure if this is accurate, but for example: https:…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're probably right, but it ultimately leads to wage compression which is for most of the middle class a disaster. You don't have to look far to see everyday people complaining about the price of a burger or movie ticket. IMHO, it doesn't "lift all boats", it pulls down the middle and upper middle classes. Yeah, the lower wage jobs made more money, but they didn't gain much if anything in affordability, since all o…
All arguments against lower class people getting higher wages are IMHO wildly inappropriate. "you need lower wages to avoid wage compression", "you need lower wage so we can have more employed people"... If wage compression occurs, then companies have to deal with Theo senior employees seeking elsewhere - or pay them fairly.
This kind of emotional reasoning is wildly inappropriate IMHO.
The commenter is not making an argument against lifting lower class wages. They’re making an observation of how economic theory may apply to this scenario.
> pay them fairly
Define “fairly”?
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> Decades of worsening conditions for the commoner is Ron Wyden's idea of a booming economy. Democrats are useful idiots. I can't anymore, folks. Republicans passed the largest tax cuts for billionaires, increased the deficit by trillions, and kicked millions of people of medicaid. Meanwhile, Trump is out there creating the most regressive tax system via tariffs we've ever seen which affect the poorest the most. Yet…
> Trump is out there creating the most regressive tax system via tariffs Tariffs incentivize domestic production. See the case of chicken tax and pickup trucks. While we do pay for tariffs now, later down the road we should not as more things would be made domestically. If you don’t do tariffs, there is no way to force producers to onshore.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
All arguments against lower class people getting higher wages are IMHO wildly inappropriate. "you need lower wages to avoid wage compression", "you need lower wage so we can have more employed people"... If wage compression occurs, then companies have to deal with Theo senior employees seeking elsewhere - or pay them fairly.
Today, I'd agree. It felt like a dirty thing to even write. Historically, the lower wage jobs were for kids or bored folk, who'd eventually move onto something better and higher wages. Recently, the economy isn't great and people take what they can find. There's absolutely no shame in that. I know people in tech who were making low to mid 6 figures now doing retail. The jobs just aren't there, and I constantly fear I…
But in other threads, people on HN said they don't even get out of bed for a 140k remote job. What gives?