Where do you think that culture came from? Corporations. They don’t make money by selling you a tool that will last 20 years. They make money by selling you a tool that will last 2.
There was also a huge boom of the service industry when boomers were adults…they stopped eating at home, and it was the norm to go out to eat. It was the norm to pay for others to do that they would otherwise have done on their own.
In a way I feel the pendulum is swinging the other direction. I know how to do exponentially more things around the house, to fix my car, to grow my own food, raise my own chickens, etc., then my boomer dad ever did. He just paid someone to do all that for him.
Like I said, I was around when it started. I remember NAFTA. I saw communities turn into trash.
Many people wanted their kids to go to college and get an easier job, because of how hard their lives were. While these new service industry jobs are easier on the body, they’re bad for the soul. The number of people grappling with mental health issues has skyrocketed since the push to this culture of convenience.
I wish people could see that there’s no free lunch. You build happy people through sacrifice and effort. America right now is circling the drain and needs a major wakeup call. I’m not kidding myself into thinking Trump is going to usher in some great Revival. I just think people want a course correction and he’s the only candidate that seemed to have a plan.
Bringing in someone like RFK Jr. helped Trump a lot as well. People want a cleanup of the food and pharmaceutical industry. If there’s any hope of making Americans healthier, I’m all for it.
I’m not really sure where you’re getting this idea from that “easy jobs” cause mental illness…
About the only thing I can get from that is when you aren’t working long laborious shifts you have more time to acknowledge how messed up the world is.
And let’s not forget, the culture of convenience is one that was wholesale supported by the republican party in regards to free market growth. That’s why we have eleventy billion Starbucks and McDonald’s.
It’s a multi-pronged issue. People need a purpose in life to have a sense of meaning. I’m not saying putting together cars or working on a train is some kind of great mental health exercise. It’s the whole family approach and community approach to life. Americans used to be taught to be proud of their nation. Now, people are taught to hold their ancestors with some form of derision. The whole apparatus is dependent upon people having a sense of pride and accomplishment. When every step of the way by modern social engineers seems to be undermining and undercutting that sense of pride - it’s bound to have a deleterious affect.
I’m not even sure about that. As much as I am unhappy with the results, I know personally too many people (and I live in one of the most liberal cities/states in the country) that voted for him.
Do I believe there may have been some interference? Sure. A lot of this isn’t even news. Gerrymandering and voter suppression have been a thing for ages.
I live in a place where I get mailed the ballot very early and can just mail it in. The very idea of having to wait in line for hours just to vote, which is a common thing in many swing states, is absurd to me.
So yeah I am not even sure without any amount of cheating things would have went the other way. Too many people making emotional votes on a candidate who promised much but will deliver little.
LOL if you think American companies will ever pay 15 to 20 an hour and health insurance on top of that when they can go to some southeast asia country and pay someone peanuts instead. Its not going to happen.
tariffs can work if used in specific areas where it creates competition with domestic industry (and even then it can be tricky). I can tell you for a fact when we (as in my company) did get hit with tariffs last time trump was in office we just raised our prices like all our competitors. There is no domestic manufacturing for the electronics we sell, everything is made in china. I know a lot of the factories now have purchased factories in Vietnam for final production in order to avoid tariffs.
Also, China is the largest single country in terms of contribution to trump properties (by far) so this whole “trump hate china” is a huge joke. The man loves all dictatorships especially ones that fill his pockets with money.
I’m a registered independent so using the "what about’ defense is useless on me. Everyone gets judged independently by me not compared to some other person.
manufacturing jobs have been leaving the US since the 70’s either off shore or became irrelevant all together. Reagan certainly didn’t start it but he certainly did nothing to help transition from it or slow it down. Really the destruction of the unions is a major factor in this country’s current economy.
Funny thing is, if they eliminate income taxes, I’d 100% love making 40% more every paycheck at the cost of 40% more any time I choose to purchase something I want but don’t need.
I’m left wondering how people can’t see that is an awesome trade. Especially when it also promotes making consoles in the US for companies to get that 6% tax decrease.
The reason why the tariffs won’t make this happen is the general lack of advanced manufacturing experience in the US compared to China. American companies started outsourcing there because it was cheaper, but China is no longer where you go for cheap manufacturing. You do your advanced manufacturing in China because they have 20-30 years experience there that the US just doesn’t.
So electronics aren’t made in China only because it’s cheaper there, they’re made in China because (currently) the Chinese are better at it. This is not to say that the US can’t catchup and overtake the Chinese, but gutting the CHIPS act and the department of education is going to be counterproductive in that goal.
And I agree that this would be a good place to end up in, I think the outgoing administration made an effort to jumpstart the process, that the incoming administration will try to reverse, undo, or generally defund.
Except everything you will buy with that extra money will cost more, thus cancelling it out. Whomp Whomp.
Also: More food for thought. https://nrf.com/research/estimated-impacts-proposed-tariffs-imports-apparel-toys-furniture-household-appliances
Trump tried to do the same thing from 2018-2020 and I would argue that it was the cause of our inflation skyrocketing on top of COVID.
Now our inflation is sitting pretty at 2.4% with our unemployment of 4.1%.
Trump’s was 14.1%.
But here’s the facts, the economy is doing well. Yes things are costly, but that’s the price of having a good economy. The problem is that companies aren’t willing to share that wealth with the consumers and the workers. That’s the point of trickle down economics and why it doesn’t work because there’s nothing nor no one who is enforcing companies do just that. There’s no regulation of that. And there needs to be regulation. And the federal mimimum wage needs to raise WITH inflation. If the common poor are making more money, then they are going to be more incentivized with spending more. The cost of living has risen to where $15 an hour is still too little to live comfortably. Meaning being able to afford a house/rent and being able to eat. $20-30 would be more apt.
I made 40 cents more than my last raise in April. However despite being at my retail job for 12 years, I’m being paid the same as someone who has been there for 2 years. Apartments are anywhere between $1.5k-2k, and I’m trying to save money to where I can afford rent for 5 months and only rent. I can’t afford to eat or buy clothes and other neccessities. But I’ll have a roof over my head. Now if the company I worked for, decided to share the wealth of their profits and paid more more…different story.
Going back to tariffs, the last time someone decided that tariffs was a great idea and the largest amount of tariffs instated was 25 countries, that led to the Great Depression by Hoover.
I’m not going to complain about electric cars because I can’t drive. I have bad anxiety when driving and my spatial awareness is bad.
Also should point out that while there are products being made here, however they’re not being made with American parts. Mondelez’s Oreos for example are made with German machinery. German parts. The same can be said for automotive, and pharmecutical where they’re being supplied by Bosch’s various engineering firms that make those machines and parts.
And the point of having babies, it costs $15k to give birth.
Yeah, because Biden cleaned it up. That stuff takes time. He inherited Trumps bad economy after he was voted out, now Trump will take credit for Biden’s clean up, then tank the economy again and blame anyone but himself for it.
You mean my PS5 that’s nothing more than a 4k blu ray player at this point…
We will see what happens. Nothing is set in stone. Didn’t he try last time to implement tariffs, and everyone used that as the excuse for GPU’s costing more when the tariffs didn’t even go through?
