Australia MIGHT go into a recession (1 Viewer)

[SylviaB]

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"What do we need manufacturing jobs for? Everything in America is going great! Everyone can just be a computer programmer!"

 

[SylviaB]

"WAHHHHHHHHH trump is abandoning Ukraine!!!! Putin's going to take over the whole world!!!! We need America to fight world war three against Russia right now!!!!"


"Also, why does it matter that Americais incresingly becoming deindustrialized? What do we need heavy industry for? We can just buy everything we need from Russia's biggest ally!"

 

[enoilgam]

If this causes interest rates to go down, young people in secure employment with mortgages may be big winners in Australia. RIP older people though, their super will be taking a HUGE hit right about now.

 

[SylviaB]

 

[enoilgam]

"Also, why does it matter that Americais incresingly becoming deindustrialized? What do we need heavy industry for? We can just buy everything we need from Russia's biggest ally!"

Temu/Shein go too hard.

 

[enoilgam]

Also on a serious note, the quality of Chinese stuff has improved a lot in recent years. I had a large fishtank and I used a lot of Chinese products and I have to say, that stuff lasted for YEARS. Whenever Id use the recommended US and German made products they constantly broke down (they were also more than double the price). The parts for the Chinese brands were also so much easier to get. It's not quality, it's simplicity. So much of their products are simple so less goes wrong. The German/US stuff was overengineered.

Also China, feel free to dump some products here if you're hurting from the tariffs - Im a whore for cheap consumer goods.

 

[HazzRat]

"What do we need manufacturing jobs for? Everything in America is going great! Everyone can just be a computer programmer!"

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Change my view: manufacturing does not benefit the economy more than any other industry. If the unemployment rate is 4%, and people are employed elsewhere, so be it. In an advanced economy, all that is needed is human resources to generate value.

 

[enoilgam]

Change my view: manufacturing does not benefit the economy more than any other industry. If the unemployment rate is 4%, and people are employed elsewhere, so be it. In an advanced economy, all that is needed is human resources to generate value.

There is an advantage to maintaining a manufacturing sector in most advanced economies (which is usually what targeted tariffs protect). However, there is a reason most major economies move on from manufacturing towards service sectors as they grow.

Also I feel in a lot of ways, manufacturing is lionised by people. Lets be honest though, how many people aspire to work in manufacturing, or better yet aspire for their kids to work in manufacturing? Not many. The irony of Trump's push towards remaking the US into a manufacturing powerhouse is that most Americans wont want those jobs - those jobs will mostly be filled by immigrants. Australia had the same issue as early as the 60s - hence why I'm talking to you now...in English.

All that said, Trump (as he so often does) speaks a bit of truth - the US far too easily gave up its manufacturing sectors by failing to protect them (ironically, this was pushed by Republicans). However, if Im making you scrambled eggs you cant ask me halfway through for fried eggs sunny side up - the ship on US manufacturing has, unfortunately sailed.

 

[SylviaB]

Change my view: manufacturing does not benefit the economy more than any other industry. If the unemployment rate is 4%, and people are employed elsewhere, so be it. In an advanced economy, all that is needed is human resources to generate value.

1. The unemployment rate only includes people looking for work. When people drop out of labor market, they cease to be 'unemployed'. This has been particularly for men, where the current rate is lower now than at any point since WW2.

There are entire states where government benefits are the main source of income for the population. This is grossly sub-optimal in a variety of ways.



Notice how this "4% unemployment rate!!!!" never stopped entire regions of the country being economically decimated?


2. "Good for the economy" is essentially a meaningless phrase. Things can be "good for the economy" while making most people worse off.

Manufacturing jobs are good for low-skilled people. And most low-skilled people (who aren't e.g. recent high school graduates) will likely always remain low-skilled.

Jobs are not fungible. Sending manufacturing industries offshore while tech and pharmaceutical industries grow may make 'muh GDP go up', but it doesn't all even out. Nobody who lost their job in the rust belt went on to become a computer scientist or biomedical engineer, nor could they.

And if you look at the jobs that replaced manufacturing jobs, its crap like minimum wage walmart workers, fast food workers, insecure service jobs, working some shop in a failing mall, just crap. With long-term manufacturing jobs, you had security, you had community, your union functioned as a social club and support network. These are the jobs that built towns and communities across the US, and it when they were lost that these communities were devastated.

With the right protectionist policies, American corporations would need American workers, and that's how things improve for them. Low-skill american workers have no leverage because they have nothing to offer when corporations can hire people from the whole rest of the world.

It doesn't mean all of them can come back or that Trump's plan will work, but if you can't acknowledge why this is even an issue then I think you're frankly just ignorant.

And if America's best minds had a secure domestic manufacturing industry to work in, they would be doing much more valuable work making manufacturing as advanced and efficient as possible, instead of designing ad delivery algorithms to sell people cheap chinese garbage, which is what they do now.

3. How can you have lived through covid and think that having a mindset of "We should become MORE dependent on China in the future!" is anything short of complete insanity?

The people most critical of protectionism per se are the ones who predicted over the past 50 years that trade with China would cause them to liberalise and become allies of the west. This is a catastrophically wrong prediction that, in a sane world, should have permanently discredited these people. But instead, now we have to listen to these clowns prattle on about how tariffs are evil and how we have to stay on the same road that will lead to China becoming a global hegemon that can tell everyone else what to do. The average young Australian thinks Russia is an existential threat (despite having nothing whatsoever to do with Australia) but then somehow think China is nothing to worry about. ABSOLUTELY MIND FUCKED RETARDS.

And how can you act even hysterically over Russia and then think that we need everything, including technology and materials necessary for western militaries, to be more and more beholden to Russia's largest and most powerful ally?

The people demanding that Europe build up their military capacity because America "betrayed them" apparently think you get missiles by buying them and are mocking the very idea that you need a heavy industrial base.

 

[SylviaB]

There is an advantage to maintaining a manufacturing sector in most advanced economies (which is usually what targeted tariffs protect). However, there is a reason most major economies move on from manufacturing towards service sectors as they grow.

Without globalisation, this trend would be vastly minimised. And of course, "there is a reason" doesn't include 'because this makes unskilled domestic workers better off'.

"There's a reason" the Australian government allows rich foreigners to buy up Australian real estate - but that doesn't make it a good reason, it doesn't mean that the average Australian isn't made worse off by it.

Also I feel in a lot of ways, manufacturing is lionised by people. Lets be honest though, how many people aspire to work in manufacturing, or better yet aspire for their kids to work in manufacturing? Not many.

These jobs are for people who have few employment opportunities in modern america. And there's this persistent, extreme delusion that if we simply send everyone to university everyone can have (and perform) "good" jobs. It's not possible and it's not happening.

But of course, even this misses the fact that manufacturing includes jobs of various kinds and levels. I would much rather work as an engineer at manufacturing facility than at a software company making gay little phone apps, and I would rather do an electrical apprenticeship at a heavy industrial site than become a 'Jim's test and tag' franchisee.

The irony of Trump's push towards remaking the US into a manufacturing powerhouse is that most Americans wont want those jobs - those jobs will mostly be filled by immigrants. Australia had the same issue as early as the 60s - hence why I'm talking to you now...in English.

You think people who have left the labor force, men reduced to being walmart workers, people in the 'gig economy' who don't know what their income will be one week from the next, wouldn't want stable long-term manufacturing jobs?

And nobody's talking about sewing T-shirts or some crap, it will be things higher up the value chain than that.

If you think nobody wants to work in manufacturing, you literally have to believe that Detroit losing a million people over the past 60 years caused a decline in manufacturing, instead of it (obviously) being the other way around.

All that said, Trump (as he so often does) speaks a bit of truth - the US far too easily gave up its manufacturing sectors by failing to protect them (ironically, this was pushed by Republicans).

Not ironically, considering Trump is not an establishment Republican and has furiously attacked many of the Republican party's core ideals from the very moment he entered politics. And course, this ignores that Democrats have been strongly in favor of free trade for many decades too, with Bill Clinton being the one who signed NAFTA into law. Trump would not hesitate for a moment to blame past Republicans for the decline of manufacturing, he's never

However, if Im making you scrambled eggs you cant ask me halfway through for fried eggs sunny side up - the ship on US manufacturing has, unfortunately sailed.

This is overly black and white thinking. It's not 'we're either getting manufacturing back or not' - there's various degrees to which manufacturing can rise. Nobody wants or expects Americans to do stuff that can be done by people in Bangladeshi slums, but America could have a much larger automotive industry.

It's so funny seeing idiots (not you, necessarily) attacking the various idea of tariffs without knowing that China, Japan and Korea only have appreciable automotive industries in the first place due to extreme protectionism

 

[Socialism]

??? are u

than at a software company making gay little phone apps

 

[lunaaaa4403]

get a job all of you

 

[lunaaaa4403]

economy this economy that. why don't you go contribute to it

 

[NotBamboo]

lost $300 in 3 days!
tariffs so useful for economy!!!
thank u trump for making everything worse!

 

[lunaaaa4403]

lost $300 in 3 days!
tariffs so useful for economy!!!
thank u trump for making everything worse!

well did u put it on red or black?

 

[NotBamboo]

well did u put it on red or black?

i put it on evens!!!
nah i had some random stocks
wasnt great timing with the recession

 

[lunaaaa4403]

i put it on evens!!!
nah i had some random stocks
wasnt great timing with the recession

oh no I hope my bitcoins are okay

 

[Tony Stark]

economy this economy that. why don't you go contribute to it

Damn best thing I've read here

 

[jane1820]

Damn best thing I've read here

Luna is an absolute diva im telling u

 

[enoilgam]

It's so funny seeing idiots (not you, necessarily) attacking the various idea of tariffs without knowing that China, Japan and Korea only have appreciable automotive industries in the first place due to extreme protectionism

I think this might be the biggest compliment Ive received on BoS. Question, you have pointed out that countries protect their auto industries, what were your thoughts on Abbott's decision to no longer support our auto industry (thus leading to its closure)