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Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class

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Re: Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class

#51

Post by surgical_fire »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #29
hparadiz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 taxe…

How much more do you think it will cost for Americans to assemble? (at least double but more likely 5 times considering other factors like healthcare, environmental and safety regulations) What do you think happens when China and other countries lose manufacturing capacity to US re-shoring... they will seek to regain elsewhere. Guess where most of the raw materials for electronics come from... it's not the US. This c…

> everyone in charge thinks the US population needs to increase.

Of course they do. With less people the pool of available workers is reduced, and this gives labor an edge.

Those in charge thinks that this is very icky. They would rather keeping the underclass desperate enough.

Re: Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class

#52

Post by dullcrisp »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #49
dullcrisp wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand we always rail against exploitative overseas labor practices here. Maybe this is actually a very progressive policy. We can all spend one day a week assembling electronics like Marx would have wanted.

I'll assemble electronics 5 days a week if I own part of the company. That is what Marx wanted. Apple generates $10 million+ per employee right now.

And they offer equity compensation so things are looking pretty good

Re: Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class

#53

Post by spacemadness »

msandford wrote: post #8

I 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…

How anyone can look at housing costs and say everything is fine look the other way is insane to me. How delusional and/or out of touch do you have to be? And if you enter the market it’s nothing but massive stress and chasing promotions to simply pay some exorbitant mortgage.

Re: Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class

#54

Post by mensetmanusman »

owebmaster wrote: post #31
mensetmanusman wrote: post #2

Globalization 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…

> When the Obama administration didn’t respond to China dumping below-cost solar on the US What should other countries do against VC tech dumping?

Whatever they want, it’s their country.

Re: Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class

#55

Post by wat10000 »

hparadiz wrote: post #19
micromacrofoot wrote: post #7

and 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 taxe…

Are you going to make an investment to seize that opportunity when you don't know if your $2 in parts might become $50 overnight because the President woke up with economics on his mind?

Re: Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class

#56

Post by micromacrofoot »

dullcrisp wrote: post #52
micromacrofoot wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll assemble electronics 5 days a week if I own part of the company. That is what Marx wanted. Apple generates $10 million+ per employee right now.

And they offer equity compensation so things are looking pretty good

to assembly line workers?

Re: Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class

#57

Post by jordanb »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #2

Globalization 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…

Globalization was a policy!

There was always this doublespeak that came to trade deals where they say "globalization is inevitable and uncontrollable and therefore we must make these trade deals to facilitate and guide it to be good."

Of course if it's an inevitable force of nature then it does not need to be facilitated by nor can it be controlled by trade deals. There's no enabling legislation for gravity.

Re: Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class

#58

Post by daft_pink »

I think the reality is that nimble adaptive companies won by quickly moving production and identifying suppliers in China (ie Amazon/Costco/Walmart/Target).

These are the same companies that are going to quickly identify suppliers and redirect operations to other countries that don’t have massive tarriffs. The same way large American companies adapted to globalization and the pandemic, you’re going to see a quick rapid adaptation where American goods are made in other countries faster than anyone thought possible.

Re: Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class

#59

Post by drivingmenuts »

> it will be time to turn once again to the task of reindustrialization

Won’t happen. 1) We don’t think like that as a nation and probably never will again. 2) in order for us to reindustrialize, we would have to have significant purchasers from outside our own economy, which means someone else would be the first world nation and we’d be the third-world nation. The people with money and power in this country are incapable of considering this or are so supremely afraid of this, the will precipitate action to prevent it; namely war.

Which is great for reindustrialization, provided anyone with brains, tools and resources survives on an irradiated planet.

Re: Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class

#60

Post by drivingmenuts »

spacemadness wrote: post #50
bryanlarsen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 70's a middle class family had 1 car, a 1200 square foot house, ate out once a month, had less than a dozen sets of clothes per person (most of which were work clothes). They felt well off, because they were doing fabulously well compared to the 30's which were still lived memory. And because they felt secure. They did not feel in any danger of losing the essentials of housing, food, clothing and health care.…

It’s always housing. We’re basically at economic war with each other. Home owners vs. non-home owners. Home owners get anxious when their house value doesn’t continue to rise past inflation. So they vote against policies that would help non home owners get into the market without drowning out of self interest.

Great line from Newsroom: we waged wars on poverty, not poor people …

Kind of sums things up. Likely, we’ll never see that again. Not in my lifetime, anyway.

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