C'mon, we lose jobs and the standard of living goes up?
Paine hit the nail on the head.
It is an almost hopeless task trying to educate Freepers concerning the realities of economics. They see the jobs lost from cheap imports. They totally miss the improvements in our standard of living that we get in return. They miss the fact that we export goods that are assembled out of the country and re-imported. Add a tariff to that industry and we lose jobs in the U.S.
I could go on but I think right now I’m going to go read some Thomas Paine.
I think part of the issue is that people see nearly a Trillion Dollars flowing out of this Country year in and year out due to an imbalance in our Trade Agreements.
No matter how things are spun, the United States always seems to end up on the losing end.
Whether it be Trade Imbalance or Automation, the People who are fortunate enough to remain Employed are paying for those who have lost their Jobs. Not everyone was working in a Factory manufacturing Buggy Whips in 1980.
The very idea that it’s perfectly fine because we can purchase a cheap Flat Screen TV or cheap trinkets at the Dollar Store loses its impact when the Social Programs need to be funded by a shrinking number of Workers.
Yes, there are statistics, there are perceptions and there are facts, but the reality of it all comes down to where we are today.
How did we end up doubling our National Debt to nearly $20 Trillion Dollars in just eight Years if Manufacturing is increasing? How is it that 95,000,000 People are out of the Workforce? Ditto increases in Welfare Recipients, Food Stamp Recipients and those claiming to be Disabled. All these figures are at an all time high so it obvious something isn’t keeping up.
It sure seems that way, and at the same time there's a lot of info being passed around here --more than I've seen elsewhere. My take is that we only seem to hear from morons because the morons are so much louder. That leaves a lot of other folks that know what's going on and don't feel the need to whine so much.
I worked for a natural gas company. When I started a fifth of the company's demand came from a HUGE industrial base with a fairly large baseload. As the decades passed the demand from that sector decreased to a small fraction of total demand. Some companies moved out of Chicago due to taxes, unions and other costs due government regulations others died like Stewart Warner. Google that company. There were many companies like that in Chicago. Now if not extinct, definitely endangered. Why? Because of Unions, taxes and regulations.
BTW, why the term “Rust Belt”? Is that a figment of Freepers’ imaginations?