Why no scrutiny of Obama's Trans Pacific Agreement? (costs, job, economic)
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I do agree men have not become more educated, so in a modern economy, that has harmed them.
The education level of men and women in the population has risen steadily. Men are still more highly educated on average, but lately more women than men are getting advanced degrees.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with free trade. We have imbalanced trade as a result of one sided policy that benefits American consumption at the expense of American production. This does cost jobs, whether anyone is willing to accept that or not... We have an overvalued currency according to many. Our trade deficit also suggests this.
Yep, our policies since '80 have been designed to encourage companies to offshore, and *cause* a large trade deficit. Keeping the US$ boosted, and unilateral trade agreements. Great for them, sky high profits and big bonuses. We got crap wages and high debt in the bargain. It all adds up.
Consumer debt maxed out, but it's been paid down a bit in the last 7 years. If we get a Rep in the whitehouse I suspect the fiscal debt will cease to matter like it usually does, the banks will start lending again, and we'll get a fairly short lived debt-fueled boost.
The only sensible way forward would be to correct what went wrong, starting with the trade deficit, but they aren't showing any indications of letting that go. Rather making it worse.
The education level of men and women in the population has risen steadily. Men are still more highly educated on average, but lately more women than men are getting advanced degrees.
Men's college %, per your chart, is flat..not rising..not good.
Yep, our policies since '80 have been designed to encourage companies to offshore, and *cause* a large trade deficit. Keeping the US$ boosted, and unilateral trade agreements. Great for them, sky high profits and big bonuses. We got crap wages and high debt in the bargain. It all adds up.
Consumer debt maxed out, but it's been paid down a bit in the last 7 years. If we get a Rep in the whitehouse I suspect the fiscal debt will cease to matter like it usually does, the banks will start lending again, and we'll get a fairly short lived debt-fueled boost.
The only sensible way forward would be to correct what went wrong, starting with the trade deficit, but they aren't showing any indications of letting that go. Rather making it worse.
So what's the bigger factor? Our policies of keeping the "US$ boosted and unilateral trade agreements"? Our policy of not racing to the bottom to keep low wage, heavy polluting industries (globalization)? Our technological innovation that has included automation and recently AI? Or a combination of two or all?
Personally, I find the latter two more important than the first. I don't discount the first at all, but I don't believe it to be the main factor. Even if we didn't pass NAFTA, we'd still lose a lot of jobs because of a changing world.
So what's the bigger factor? Our policies of keeping the "US$ boosted and unilateral trade agreements"? Our policy of not racing to the bottom to keep low wage, heavy polluting industries (globalization)? Our technological innovation that has included automation and recently AI? Or a combination of two or all?
It makes sense to offshore labor intensive production, but if we are going to increase imports we need to export an equivalent value of something else. Something higher value added. "Free"trade really would have made us richer if that had been the case.
But instead the value of the US$ was kept high, fiscal deficits no longer mattered, and consumers got loose credit instead of wage increases. We escalated debt to fill the hole left from producing less than we consume, until the debt maxed out. Follow the money to find out why.
Automation eliminating jobs is the luddite argument. It hasn't been an issue and it won't be until the AI gets really smart. Our situation was specifically contrived so a few people could get really rich.
Men's college %, per your chart, is flat..not rising..not good.
More recent data shows it going up again.
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