Keep Them Poor?

[Dargelos]

Western electronics is entirely dependant on components from Taiwan. No other country has the equipment to make the volumes of advanced devices that we rely on today. Only one company, in Holland, can supply the most advanced semiconductor mass production machinery, all their output is booked up for the forseeable future with orders fron Taiwan. China could strangle the supply of electronics to the west, if it wanted to. Then the price of cars, televisions, phones, and all the rest goes sky high and whichever party is in power at the time gets the blame from the voters. In this way China has the power to change the American government . Scared? you should be. If this was a story in an airport novel, it would sound too far fetched. But it's real.

 

[Thad1527]

Apple once manufactured in California. That day is long gone.

It's quite hard work being poor. There are so many costs...check cashing fees, high grocery prices in city mini-marts, many other things I don't want to remember.

 

[NotHardUp1]

I'm sorry, but it cannot be that no one ever succeeded because things were hard. Inflation in the 1970's was incredibly high. I still remember poor people hanging on and workin their way up, and without high paying factory jobs.

And it cannot be as convenient as Mr. Trump's China as the bogeyman. Think harder.

Before all manufacturing went to China, it went to Mexico for the automotive companies. It went to Puerto Rico for the big pharma. It went to Japan for electronics. It went to the "baby tigers" in the 80's for the same reasons it later went to China. It was capitalism becoming globalized. Labor did and does see the cheapest route. Once labor and shipping combined are low enough, it flows to SE Asia, to the Phillipines, to the Indian subcontinent, to Central and South America.

Even domestically, service jobs flowed out from cities on the West Coast to the Midwest where jobs were fewer and labor was hungrier, especially unskilled labor. Then it went overseas.

And, as I've said repeatedly, we have the best government money can buy. Industry writes the laws and Congress passes them. Big companies simply incorporate overseas to avoid the laws and taxes they truly owe. Or they move just over the border, to Canada, as Burger King did when it bought a company just to use the street address.

It is not the scheme of any one administration, but of a government that long ago sold its power to the highest bidder, be it JP Morgan, Mr. Vanderbilt, or George Bezos.

That still cannot all be lumped into "it's hard, so why try?" And it certainly isn't "it's impossible." Is it harder than it was 70 years ago? Likely, but the determined will find a way.

 

[Dargelos]

The Taiwan story is via John Naughton of The Observer, a rather more trustworthy source than DJT. My bad for not saying so at the time.

 

[peeonme]

I'm sorry, but it cannot be that no one ever succeeded because things were hard. Inflation in the 1970's was incredibly high. I still remember poor people hanging on and workin their way up, and without high paying factory jobs.

And it cannot be as convenient as Mr. Trump's China as the bogeyman. Think harder.

Before all manufacturing went to China, it went to Mexico for the automotive companies. It went to Puerto Rico for the big pharma. It went to Japan for electronics. It went to the "baby tigers" in the 80's for the same reasons it later went to China. It was capitalism becoming globalized. Labor did and does see the cheapest route. Once labor and shipping combined are low enough, it flows to SE Asia, to the Phillipines, to the Indian subcontinent, to Central and South America.

Even domestically, service jobs flowed out from cities on the West Coast to the Midwest where jobs were fewer and labor was hungrier, especially unskilled labor. Then it went overseas.

And, as I've said repeatedly, we have the best government money can buy. Industry writes the laws and Congress passes them. Big companies simply incorporate overseas to avoid the laws and taxes they truly owe. Or they move just over the border, to Canada, as Burger King did when it bought a company just to use the street address.

It is not the scheme of any one administration, but of a government that long ago sold its power to the highest bidder, be it JP Morgan, Mr. Vanderbilt, or George Bezos.

That still cannot all be lumped into "it's hard, so why try?" And it certainly isn't "it's impossible." Is it harder than it was 70 years ago? Likely, but the determined will find a way.

I am hardly contending that it should be "easy" to make a living in America. I am saying that it shouldn't be impossible for a family to own a home, drive a decent car, have health care and eat healthy food. Nor do I imply that it is the fault of one administration or party, not at all. It was the concerted efforts of of multiple administrations from both parties that have attacked the blue collar middle class. When Clinton went with NAFTA, GATT, WTO and MFNTS for China (long before Trump came along) I knew that the good old days had come and gone. I fully believe in working my way up, thankfully I did it before the rungs were cut out of the ladder.

 

[LoveMyPeppermill]

I have to point out that when the communists took over my home country, there was nothing but starvation. Let me point out a few things.

Over there, they assigned my oldest sister to work in a shrimp factory. Removing shell from shrimp. Over here in the US, she is now head electronic engineer managing a whole department in one of the biggest corporations manufacturing electronic parts.

Over there, my oldest brother was assigned to work as a ditch digger. Over here he is a project manager leading hundred million dollar projects.

Before the communists took over, my mom was a school teacher. After they took over, they assigned her to work in a sweat shop sewing clothes. My dad was a college professor and a member of government. After they took over, he was sent to a re-education camp for 7 years.

Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos?

I'm guessing not Cambodia, because I think the Khmer Rouge would simply have killed your father right away.

 

[peeonme]

My point in starting this thread is not to debate capitalism vs. socialism. It's about a government that taxes things like cigarettes to keep them out of reach and stop people from getting addicted. A government that feels the need to make cars so safe that it raises the price to the point where the average guy can't touch them. But at the same time doesn't care about basic needs, sure there are some that would be happy to get everyone on the "dole" which is just a means of perpetual poverty, but it seems that neither side wants an upwardly mobile working class of people where the next generation has an opportunity to do better than there parents.

Keep in mind also that the next time some idiot decides a good war would be nice, that it will be the the people that the elite care little about that end up fighting it.

 

[Dargelos]

an upwardly mobile working class of people where the next generation has an opportunity to do better than there parents.

That sounds like a good mission statement for the trades union movement. It was not just about fair wages and conditions, important as they are. It was also about education, so that working people knew how to aim higher.
A working class, ie most of us, who will not settle for their place at the bottom, frightens those who depend on keeping the poor poor for their own wealth. Look at how much money Amazon is prepared to spend in order to kill the union it it's sweatshops.

 

[metta]

View attachment Ut1FCZtpMJpRML_e.mp4

 

[Kahaih]

People who bring more mouths to feed, more people to shelter, into the mix have no right to bitch. None whatsoever.

 

[Caracara]

There is a road out of this rut but it involves the use of a dirty word, don't know if this word is allowed on JUB.
Maybe if I say it very quietly. socialism.

Many in Venezuela and Cuba might not agree. So you have to be more precise than just socialism.

 

[Caracara]

We often see nefarious plots which over plays things a bit. When the US began to move good jobs overseas some 40 years ago, the powers that be saw in their minds a chance to increase trade which they felt would increase opportunities for the poor overseas and give American consumers better priced consumer goods. And save corporations money A global trading network would better connect us and it would be a win win for everyone.

It hasn’t all worked out that way. But I pose the question, would you be willing to pay $2000 for a new iPhone if happy well paid Americans made them all?

The consequences of moving good jobs overseas and away from the heart of America has had all sorts of unintended consequences. But every time we look for a better deal on that gadget we drive another in the coffin.

 

[metta]

Many in Venezuela and Cuba might not agree. So you have to be more precise than just socialism.

Cuba is a communist country that has been hurt by the embargo from the USA. Venezuela has had to deal with dictator after dictator, often put in by the USA. Whenever Venezuela votes in politicians that want to help them, the USA pushes to get them out of power to support USA corporations. Why don't you look at countries that the USA has not been trying to control who is in power, like Sweden and Norway?

 

[Caracara]

The embargo is a dumb idea. But if anyone thinks that’s the sole reason for Cuba’s economic problems is the embargo they are misguided. I have been to Cuba several times and listening to the Cuban people is an eye opener. As for Chavez-Maduro, that cartel has been in power for 24 years now. The current economic mess is on them at this point

 

[Dominus]

View attachment 2154114

What is the point if this video? If working hard is all it takes to succeed, coal miners and ditch diggers would rule the world.

I'm sorry, the world has changed. Stop trying to live in the past.

 

[Kulindahr]

There isn't any idea that a poor person will move to the country and buy or build a new house, or that land will be given him, or that he'll plop down into a 40-hour job with great benefits.

He'll do as our ancestors have done. Work his way up from lesser jobs, or multiple jobs, as they did. He'll live in rental property until he has enough money to live in better and some day buy. He may have to live with several others until they can afford separate homes.

Except for one thing: people continue leaving the countryside because the jobs are in the cities, and white young people leave the countryside at an inordinate rate because immigrants work harder for less money. There are farm jobs here that pay $20 an hour and Mexicans grab them -- while white kids won't do the same work for $24 an hour.

 

[Kulindahr]

And the sevices and information economies are increasingly workable by remote technology.

Thinking of remote technology: in my university days there were hundreds of jobs that could be had out in the countryside around the college town, moving irrigation pipe. Those jobs no longer exist because the irrigation equipment has become automated. On a big enough spread a farmer might hire one guy where he used to hire twenty; that one guy's job is to sit and monitor the irrigation systems on a computer screen.
It's not quite that bad for logging, but since I was in high school a good third of the logging jobs are gone because of computer-controlled equipment -- there are even loaders (the rig that picks up logs and stacks them on a truck) that are computer-controlled.
And the cheese factory here underwent an expansion a decade back that nearly doubled its production -- and when the construction was done and the new facilities ready, they switched production over so they could upgrade the existing facilities. When it was all nice and new, there were fewer jobs than before the expansion.
Here's another one that I noticed today: twenty-five years ago the water meters got read by guys lifting the cover, wiping the dirt away, and copying down the reading. The guy doing the meter reading today was just walking along the sidewalk and waving something that looked like a metal detector over the meters. Instead of a dozen guys to read all the meters in town it now takes one, and he never even has to bend over. The electric meter are even simpler: a guy drives a truck along the street at about 15mph and the meters are read via electronic signal. Oh, and his job is in danger; they're talking about switching to a system where somehow the meters just report to the office all by themselves!!

 

[Kulindahr]

And to address Portland, it's not typical.

It's a coastal state that has frankly become a Mecca for hippies and homeless and it has triggered a culture war and reactionary laws, etc.

It's on the coast. It is more expensive because it is more desirable.

It's more expensive because of the urban growth boundaries: the only way to build something new is to knock down something that exists.

I'm not arguing it's not rural, but the coastal states where there is influx and demand are different than the states between the pressures of the coasts.

Huh? Portland is hardly "rural"! It's solid city 35 miles by 25 miles except for some parks.

The poor, to get a better break, will need to look at rural towns in states that are not sexy or hot in the market. That's the reality of economics.

There's nothing in rural towns -- that's why the populations are either stagnant or decreasing.

 

[Kulindahr]

/\ But, isn't the US heavily in financial debt to China. Seems like it might be too late to cut that connection.

Just offer incentives for building facilities in North America and as much farther south as highways go.

 

[Kulindahr]

It's about a government that taxes things like cigarettes to keep them out of reach and stop people from getting addicted. A government that feels the need to make cars so safe that it raises the price to the point where the average guy can't touch them.

And a government that demands that new houses have all the best tech so that an "affordable" house costs five teams the median income, and that in an economy where full-time jobs are too often a fantasy.