This "globalism" you're quick to demonize is one of the greatest forces for progress the world has seen. The world's poverty rates, starvation rates, sicknesses, childhood death rates, illiteracy rates, etc. have dropped like a sack of potatoes as a result of global trade. Nationalism and xenophobia, while definitely common in the 1950's, aren't the tools to bring back the middle class of that era.
Tell that to the midwestern industrial towns, who for decades have massive job and population declines, and who see year after year of opiate deaths that exceed (in each year!!) the deaths from the Vietnam war in total, as a result of economic hopelessness. [0]
You talk about death rates. The suicide rate of working class white Americans has been sky rocketing [1]
You can ignore these and many many other data points to assume a narrative of unceasing improvement, but millions of people would rightly see that as nonsense. [2]
The towns who are relying on cheaper steel and aluminum imports to build air conditioning units for the rest of America?
Or the ones relying upon cheaper steel and aluminum to build cars? Or Airplanes?
Sure, it sucks to be Pittsburgh when steel imports compete against the steel industry. But its great for literally every other industrial town in the USA. There are far more USERS of steel than there are makers of steel.
Tell me: do you think the 25% price increase on imported steel (helping Pittsburgh, and almost no one else) is worth the Chinese tariff on Pork, Nuts, Wine, and other agricultural products (aka: the majority of rural American's exports)?
Pittsburgh is a blueprint for the rest of the country in this regard. It sucked to be Pittsburgh in 1970-1990. Today, Pittsburgh is almost unrecognizable from the Steel City, at least in economic terms, and the county's unemployment rate is right around the national average.
> helping Pittsburgh, and almost no one else
The help to Pittsburgh would be pretty marginal; US Steel isn't even a top 5 employer in the region, and a lot of those jobs are suits that scale logarithmically with output. US Steel employs about the same number of people as Carnegie Mellon, which isn't even a particularly large university among R1 institutions.
But China already has far higher tariffs on many goods, so the deal isn't equal already. To extend your point, I think we need to go further.
Higher oil prices in 2008 did what? Increased domestic oil production, massively.
We'll see this in steel, and we should take measures to do the same for other industries by equalizing tariffs vs China.
But back to my point about globalization leading to massive outsourcing of jobs to China, then leading to massive economic dissolution to large swaths of the country. We can't all be "coders".. So what's the solution?
We "buy local" by spending a little bit higher prices on food and hipster coffee & craft beer and restaurants etc. Why can't we do the same, at the margins for all sorts of industries. Is that "more expensive" than dealing with epidemic levels of Opioid addictions and corresponding healthcare and other costs? The current situation is not working.. or more specifically, it is not working for a particular group of people in any way whatsoever.
As you can see, the US is increasing manufacturing steadily (with exception of the 2008 recession).
The problem is that we've got fewer jobs that produce MORE than we did before. The issue is that the USA is getting incredibly more efficient at manufacturing.
Consider the relatively labor-intensive job of farming. With innovations like "Plant Tape", what used to be a 10-person job is now the job of ~3 people and one tractor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzHo80bO-sU
And said ~3 people+tractor will work more efficiently and get more work done than 10-people in the "old way". Fewer and fewer people are needed to work anymore. That's the problem.
> We can't all be "coders".. So what's the solution?
You seem to have confused the current opioid epidemic as being caused by globalism, or economic hopelessness as you put it.
None of your sources link those two, and U.S. unemployment is at a record low so I'm not sure what the point is you're trying to make here is. Yes, the opioid epidemic exists, but nobody was saying here that it doesn't, so why are you introducing it?
All that says is that joblessness can be one of many factors in the opioid epidemic - it doesn't make a very strong case for it and still comes off as a fishing trip.
It also doesn't explain why GP is introducing the opioid epidemic as a consequence of globalism.
Are you surprised that people are upset when resources that used to be local are spread thinly across the globe? Forgive them, when they don't jump for joy.
You ignore the very real feeling they must be having when they can't afford a home. You ignore how they must feel when they put off marriage, and having children, because they're living paycheck to paycheck. You ignore how it must feel to wonder if you'll ever retire, feeling like you just barely missed the "good times". Its happening in our country, in our neighborhoods, to good people. It's no wonder Trump's slogan was "Make America Great Again". People eat that shit up right now. The standard of living is dropping and the middle and lower classes are feeling it the worst.
But hurray, global poverty is down.
There's a real dilution to the western experience happening right now and it's naïve to brush off the woes of your countryman with the idealistic perspective of a global poverty lift.
The wealthiest 20% of Americans have experienced the opposite of dilution over the past 40 years. Meanwhile the other 80% kept voting for policies that were actively working against spreading the income surplus more evenly.
When they finally woke up to what’s happening, the blame goes on Chinese and Africans — because anything else would be suspiciously close to an argument for socialism.
> Meanwhile the other 80% kept voting for policies that were actively working against spreading the income surplus more evenly.
That would be a fair criticism, but I don't see any major party candidates advocating for wealth redistribution. Maybe if someone was allowed to offer an argument for limited socialism then we could actually vote on it and try it out.
The only semi-socialist candidate in recent memory who came close to winning the primary was railroaded through a combination of systems that favor the status quo (superdelegates), a media that alternately ignored and attacked his candidacy, and a party that actively schemed against him while nominally allowing him to run.
All this after we elected a president who ran as the "change" candidate and promised to hold big banks accountable, only to stick the taxpayers with the bailout bill, increase the scope of domestic spying programs, and implement a flawed health care scheme dreamed up by the Republicans.
I can understand why people are pissed. I can also understand why some might choose to vote for their narrow self-interest, given the state of our democracy.
George Carlin said it well: "Good honest hard-workin people CONTINUE -- these are people of modest means -- continue to elect these RICH COCKSUCKERS who don't GIVE a fuck about them."[1].
I can't say that I didn't feel bad for them but this has been long time coming. How come countries like Germany are at the same time booming, is it because there is something intrinsically different about the two populations? We are not just leaves in a stream floating around aimlessly, the people themselves have to try and change the current status quo. If the system in place does not provide a way to do it or does it inefficiently (how I view Trump election win) it does a disservice to its people.
It disgusts me how any comment like yours that goes against the status quo here is downvoted,and if you are lucky enough to get a reply, it will inevitably avoid your points and just pivot to the same preferred talking points. Ironically, the people here expect uneducated laborers from middle America to completely understand a complex world when they themselves can't participate in good faith in an intellectually honest discussion.
Who will be the first to jump for the report button boys?
The HN voting system only works when most participants can keep an open mind. Unfortunately when it comes to politics it's hard for people to keep an open mind.
If I am wrong then tell me where I am wrong - but don't downvote comments just because they make you feel uncomfortable.
Every time I make a pro bitcoin or pro blockchain comment on HN I get downvoted to hell. So much for open minds here. Seems people are very touchy feely on politics, blockchain or anything else against the grain of the majority.
Global trade is neither going away nor will there be billions more starving babies if we change our trade policies to protect ourselves against totalitarian regimes who have considerably more selfish interests than us.
