Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I'm not sure what you mean by this. I think Sebby's point is that running the country without significant tariffs, in an era of global transportation and supply chains, encourages manufacturers to put less skilled jobs in other countries where wages are lower. Things that were once made in the United States are now made in other countries. This is obviously true, no? I think your point is that the open trade regime also fosters the development of new jobs here, which are often higher skilled and better paying, and that in the aggregate the country is at least as well enough.
Implicit in your response, too, is the observation that other countries are developing too, and are always catching up. Goods that were once cutting-edge are now commodities that can be made in all sorts of places (cars in Mexico, smartphones in China, nuclear weapons in Iran), and increasing tariffs won't change that. Increasing tariffs will protect less-skilled jobs here, but at the expense of US consumers, who will pay higher prices and have less to choose from, and US manufacturers, whose exports will be hurt when other countries do the same. In other words, what are you going to do?
To which Sebby says, maybe you guys in San Francisco and Minneapolis are living large from the cutting-edge jobs that this trade creates, but here in Pennsylvania the losers that I hang out with don't have the skills to get those jobs, and wouldn't want to leave this hellhole to move to those cities anyway. They are screwed, and so they vote for Trump. You've got to end free trade to make them happy, because I can't think of anything else and besides, it pisses off liberals so it must be good.
Needless to say, you don't find that a compelling line of thought. But it would be nice if you had something better to offer.
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Actually, I didn't intend to say any of what you wrote. My point was limited and it was this: The concept of a "Corporate Progressive" is an oxymoron.
The rest of what you've written here is an ornate strawman.
But oddly, it proves my point. I think you hold yourself out as a progressive. This would mean you care about people. But actually, you don't really care about people. You're a closeted libertarian. Like me, you don't see any solution for lower skilled workers with which you can live. As you said, "What can you do?" But like me, you don't want to see any policies implemented that possibly harm your revenue stream. So you are vehemently anti-protectionist. Like me. And like me, you don't mind paying a few extra dollars at tax time to protect the status quo that delivers money to you far in excess of what you're worth, at cost to lower level workers who are being paid far less than they should be paid. We just differ in the amount.
We are both enjoying an upward skewing of wages to those in upper middle and top tier management, and the types of professionals that service them.
Where we differ, but not much, is I'd also like to avoid taxes. I'm trying to skin it from the revenue angle (keeping more of the revenue for myself) and the tax angle.*
I can't be called a "progressive" economically because, well, I'm not. But neither can you. We're a pair of confused sorta-libertarians who differ on amount of taxes they're willing to pay.
A progressive, OTOH, would demand that we find a way to share the revenue with lower end workers. A progressive would never use the argument that keeping goods cheap for underpaid workers is more important than sharing the revenue with them to allow them to buy goods. A progressive would seek to fix the system that created the inequality rather than pay off the economic losers on the cheap via small enhancements in redistribution via taxes.
But we don't care. I mean, I'll carp about the issue here, but it's to demonstrate some abstract point, such as there is no such thing as a "corporate progressive," and that you're not much different from a tax voter in terms of impact and motive. But I don't think there's any real fix. As you said, and I agree, "What are you going to do?"
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* My household is directly exposed to possible minimum wage increases. I'm all for giving the worker more money, but my family's interests may squelch that altruism if the policy ever winds up on a ballot. And I'll use your rationalization when I vote against it: "These people should have moved. They stayed, so they deserve to be paid less so my family can have more."
