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This is economics forum - take you BS over to the politics threads.
BTW - might quit listening to the Union Hacks - Trump has strongly supported trying to bring manufacturing back and Biden is much more a dictator wannabe with some of his day one plans.
Actually my point was on topic: user Aredhel was referring to the unequal trading status between the U.S. and China. One way to do that is to try to persuade or coerce China to be a better world citizen. The other way is for us to lower ourselves by cutting our labor costs and shedding our environmental regulations. Objectively Trump supports both: coercion through tariffs, being pro-labor but anti-union and anti-minimum wage increase, and has slashed environmental regulations.
Part of the problem is a job is more than just the pay it brings in. It means contributing something as well as the pride in completing a task and (hopefully) being respected for it. I'm not sure that a universal basic income accomplishes that.
And I don't have the complete answer but simplistic answers like 'retrain them for the new era jobs' or 'they should find something else to do' are not the answer
Tons of bottom jobs have nothing to do with pride and probably only humiliates people. If you flip burgers and customers yell at you, what is the pride here? If you are a cashier, many people won't respect you.
I think tons of such jobs are better to go. We'll need to find new meaning and shift our identity from our career, but I think it is inevitable, we simply don't have enough jobs. Many people in the offices have this crisis when they feel all they do is bull****, and it is not really their fault.
Tons of bottom jobs have nothing to do with pride and probably only humiliates people. If you flip burgers and customers yell at you, what is the pride here? If you are a cashier, many people won't respect you.
I think tons of such jobs are better to go. We'll need to find new meaning and shift our identity from our career, but I think it is inevitable, we simply don't have enough jobs. Many people in the offices have this crisis when they feel all they do is bull****, and it is not really their fault.
So it is better to sit at home and do nothing? You and I obviously disagree on basics like giving kids money whenever they want it or requiring tasks to be done to get an allowance.
I've had my share of 'bottom jobs' and they are a starting point. Learning to keep a schedule, work with others, etc. The problem is when there is no way to move up from the 'bottom jobs'.
It amazes and depresses me that Americans are so contemptuous of what they call "menial jobs". The more enlightened/progressive ones cover their contempt by saying "no one should do these jobs - let's have UBI instead and they can sit at home and do nothing"
Reminds me of an article about 20 years ago in the WSJ, about a black entrepreneur in D.C. who started a company to hire homeless men to be shoe shiners. He gave them uniforms and kits and put them to work on downtown corners.
The civil rights machine sprung into action however, and sued to get him de-licensed and put out of business. "There's more dignity on welfare than to shine shoes" said one of the activists. They disliked the image of a black person shining a white person's shoes.
Ironically they used a Jim Crow era law that was still on the books, to put him out of work. Something about "not allowed to do low level service on the street" which was specifically intended to put down black people. You can't make this stuff up!
For all the talk that came out of the 1960s about egalitarianism and honoring the working man, we've backslid basically to the 1890s and the gilded era, when the rich new money types only respected each other and despised everyone else.
You and I don't precisely agree with very often but your words here are right on target IMO.
Thanks, but I can’t take full credit — I was paraphrasing what Jean-Louise Gassée said about work some thirty years ago. Humans are makers, artists, explorers and it always strikes me as odd when people claim that our best future is one where machines do most things for us.
We're not transitioning away from a service economy, and not much any politician can do about it. However, the natural resources we use to power that economy have already started to shift. Coal consumption in the US is down, oil has leveled off, but renewables are soaring, as are products made out of biological raw materials. But it's up to individuals to ensure they have the particular skills to compete in this economy. America didn't become a wealthy nation by whining about others who have wealth.
Can the United States switch to a less Service (80%) based economy ?
How viable is an 80% service economy for the future?
Sure we could.
Once you understand the global elite doesn't want it that way, doesn't want any country to have any degree of economic self sufficiency, it starts to make sense.
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