Unfortunate that the entertainment and digital goods and services industries have not been able to create enough good union jobs to replace those lost from offshoring manufacturing, especially in the “rust belt” areas.

Here in Britain this remains a cornerstone of the junction between politics and economics. Most of the world still believes in comparative advantage. It is the intellectual core of globalisation.

Globalization did not result in each country of the world sharing in the production of the world’s goods, and sharing equally in the growth and improvements in living standards, it resulted in China becoming the world’s producer, making them much wealthier and elevating them to the status of a super power.

The economic “might” of the US over the past half century has been based on the fact that we have the defacto world reserve currency and still have the world’s largest military. We don’t produce very much. We import a lot. If one of our companies does develop some important new technology, the products themselves are more than likely produced in China, or in some other foreign country. Advanced semiconductors are fabricated in Taiwan, using high tech lithography machines developed by a Dutch company. The only thing we specialize in is financial speculation and buying a whole lot shit, most of which is imported.

This is what Trump wants. He wants the market to drop and/or a recession. Why? To force the Fed to drop rates back to essentially zero. Once that happens, expect a blistering turnaround in the market. Everyone and their great aunt will be borrowing money at ultra low interest to buy stocks. The stock market will explode, maybe crypto, too. Inflation will skyrocket. It will be nuts.

It makes sense, when you think about it. The US offshored a lot of our production to countries with lower taxes, fewer regulations, and, most importantly, cheaper labor. That put downward pressure on wages for American workers in the same fields, as they were having to compete with foreign workers who were paid less, often in much poorer nations where the cost of living was also much lower.

This offshoring did result in cheaper products for consumers, being imported from foreign countries, but it came at the cost of American manufacturing jobs. Most experts didn’t think that was a problem, as they theorized that as economies developed and became more advanced, there would naturally be fewer people working in manufacturing and more people working in service jobs. The idea, seemingly, was that poorer countries would always handle the world’s manufacturing while rich countries would mostly do desk jobs. This, however, doesn’t appear to be the case, and people are starting to realize that domestic manufacturing is always going to be necessary, even, and especially, for national security reasons. Even Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, acknowledged this in a pivotal speech he gave to the Brookings Institute in April of 2023.

Trump’s tariffs are a clumsy, oafish attempt to get people to buy American and bring manufacturing jobs back to the US, a goal that he and Biden shared. However, Trump is, predictably, going about it the wrong way. A massive shift in economic policy like that, needs to be done carefully and tactfully, so to cause as little economic instability as possible. Trump prefers taking the more aggressive and potentially harmful (at least in the short term) route.

I understand why workers support this, though, because I get that American workers don’t necessarily want to have to wait for a lengthy transition process before they can get better paying manufacturing jobs. But, their impatience might hurt them. Consumers aren’t going to start paying higher prices for American made goods, just because of the tariffs. Consumers want good quality products at affordable prices. If American companies can’t provide that, the tariffs aren’t going to accomplish anything.

I expected better

Then you’re a fucking idiot.

I hope things improve here in the US, but at some point there’s really nothing else to do but leave. There’s a point where the US simply becomes a lost cause. I don’t know if we’re there yet, but I don’t feel like things are heading in the right direction.

I fully share your loathing of European free-loading

Europe didn’t choose to be a vassal to the US, it happened because the continent was devastated by WW2. Europe needed help from the world’s sole superpower, especially for defense against the common enemy of the Soviet Union.

But that era is over. Europe is no longer rebuilding from WW2 and the Soviet Union is gone. I think Europe is beginning to realize that being under the thumb of the US is not a place they want to be. I fully expect Europe to work to liberate itself from US dependence.

Every group of people need to have autonomy and independence, and the right to self-govern. No people should have to fear violence and repression from another group.

Donnie doesn’t have a stable policy

That seems to be the case.

Trade wars could cause countries to “go back to being insular,” Bhatia said, which could cultivate “spurts of patriotism that translate into people spending more locally in their own nation.”

Consumer spending on goods and services account for around two-thirds of U.S. gross domestic product. There is therefore is a “high probability” that a tariff-induced increase in domestic expenditure will cause the country’s GDP to “do better than you anticipate,” Bhatia said.

None of that sounds all that bad, to me, but Americans have gotten very used to buying cheap goods imported from foreign countries where labor and other costs are much lower. The whole point of tariffs is to make those foreign made goods more expensive so that American made goods can better compete with them on price, but that doesn’t result in things getting less expensive for consumers (or producers, for that matter, since they’ve also gotten used to cheap, foreign made parts and components). Prices will go up, and if they go up too much American consumers might stop buying.

Or will they? Americans be shoppin’, and I’m not sure how high prices would have to go for them to stop. I don’t know where people get the money to just keep consuming, but they do, somehow.

Edit: I think there is the threat of American producers trying to keep prices from going up too much by finding ways to suppress wages for workers and by just making products crappier, since their primary focus will be squeezing every possible penny of profit out of every sale.

However, the billionaire’s increasing government influence has aligned with a global decline in Tesla sales, leading some to believe his political moves are damaging the company’s brand.

For me, the Tesla brand is permanently damaged. I will never buy a Tesla. I don’t care if they’re good EVs, I don’t care if they’re the best EVs, I will never buy one.

Two decades of mostly uninterrupted neoliberal rule.

FDR challenged the establishment at the time, even the academic and technocratic paradigm at the time, which is exactly what I said.

You’d have to ask the experts why they abandoned that paradigm in the 1970s, in favor of neoliberalism.

But ultimately I think you and I agree that the moderates shouldn’t be so adverse to left populism.

You should want them to be against the established paradigm if you want anything to change.

But simply being against the established paradigm isn’t enough to change things. You need to build a new paradigm, and that takes time, and it can’t be accomplished by just ignoring the existing experts and technocrats.

So why are you talking about Democrats doing that like it’s a good thing?

One of the characteristics of populism is being anti-establishment, even against the established academic and technocratic paradigm. So, when a populist candidate moderates once in office, they become less populist and come more inline with the established academic and technocratic paradigm when they seek the advice and guidance of experts. Not all populists moderate once in office, because they don’t all listen to experts. Trump is a great example, and I think right wing politicians who get elected by building a populist movement are less likely to moderate once in office because they are less likely to listen to experts.

Neoliberalism started taking over as the dominant paradigm in the 1970s, and had become firmly entrenched in academia and the political technocratic state by the 1980s. That has changed, and is continuing to change, but there was a time when the majority of experts and technocrats were neoliberals. Many still are, unfortunately, though, I think the influence of neoliberalism is declining, albeit slowly (at least too slow for my preference).

The Democrats need to embrace populism to get into office, like they did with Obama in 2008. Remember, Obama wasn’t the Democratic establishment’s first choice, but as Obama’s movement grew, they recognized that they could ride his wave back into power. Something similar happened in 2016 with Bernie Sanders, but in that case the Democratic establishment turned away from the candidate with the rapidly growing populist movement, because his language was much too explicitly and aggressively left populist for their comfort. This was a mistake. Had the Democratic establishment embraced Bernie’s movement, I don’t think Trump would have been elected in 2016.

I hope by now moderate Democrats realize a Bernie Sanders presidency would have been better than the Trump presidency. Many Democrats, apparently, didn’t think Bernie was a better option than Trump, that they were both equally bad options. Again, I hope moderate Democrats recognize now that that thinking was wrong. Bernie would have become more moderate once in office, just like Obama. Because Bernie, like Obama, would have listened to the experts.

That’s what the Democrats need to do: wait for a populist movement to form around a candidate, ride that populist wave into office, then the experts and technocrats can take over.

That all being said, Democrats also need to ensure that the experts and the technocrats are doing their jobs properly. Part of the reason these populist movements exist is because of the failures of technocrats and experts, failure to recognize the limitations or contradictions within their ideology. The technocrats must ensure that once they are back in power they are managing the country and the economy properly, so that the largest possible number of people can thrive, otherwise they will not be able to hold on to power.

I’m sure they matter to you.

They do. The question is: do they matter to you?

Particularly the concerns of charlie kirk

I don’t know why you keep bringing up Charlie Kirk. I know next to nothing about him, I don’t listen to him. I don’t know, or care what he thinks about, well, much of anything, really.

And your wing of the party has made it crystal clear that they are uninterested in helping anyone poorer than the “good billionaires” they toady up to.

It’s not my wing of the party. I don’t have a party, which is why I said I wanted to build a new Leftist movement: one that is interested in the concerns of the working class people. But, what folks like you don’t understand, is that most working class people are not concerned about whether or not trans women are allowed to participate in women’s sports. They are concerned about paying their rent, feeding their families, affording medical care, and other day-to-day, material issues. I choose to focus on those issues. You can focus on whatever you want, I don’t care. My new Leftist movement won’t include people like you, because you’re not helping anyone, and I don’t think you care to. You would accept widespread harm, so long as you could go on performing as a social justice advocate.

I have nothing more to say to you. I’m really not interested in reading another one of your vapid, banal responses about Charlie Kirk, or whatever other nonsense you might come up with. I’m going to go actually try to make the world a better place.

I’m not the one deflecting. You never answered my question: should the concerns of non-trans people also matter to the Left?

Yes, this thread is about trans issues, specifically the question of whether or not trans women should be allowed to participate in women’s sports. Do you realize how privileged you have to be for that to be a major concern? Poverty, destitution, illness, these are problems that millions of people face everyday, yet you won’t even acknowledge them because “that’s not what this thread is about.” You’re no Leftist.