In the global marketplace, American workers living in nice suburbs are trying to compete with poor, short-lived Chinese peasants living next to polluted rivers. Guess what? The Chinese will work for less. This is part of why US unemployment and manufacturing are in rough shape. Our tax policies and union policies are part of the problem, but the bottomline is that we cannot compete internationally unless we want to live like peasants and put up with scandalous amounts of pollution. What to do?
But the flip side is that we produce lots of food, and we could produce vast amounts of energy. In certain respects, we live in a post-scarcity society. Americans do not need to be poor. With some sort of flat tax scheme, in which everyone is guaranteed a basic national income (yeah, I know, this veers toward Socialism) and pays no taxes on the first $20,000 or so, then we could eliminate poverty in America.
What we need to grasp is that not EVERY American can live in a 3000 sq ft house on the beach, with occasional vacation to Switzerland for skiing. We need to accept the fact that auto mechanics, plumbers, and carpenters have good lives. There is nothing wrong with just building (through sweat) a strong national economy.
Nation Building begins at home.
Pretty good, pretty good.
“I’m going to do a terrible job expressing this, but I’m going to give it a shot anyway —”
I think you did a pretty good job.
Our Government policies should be aimed at promoting a healthy economy and Opportunity for all. The best thing for workers and employees is a healthy economy. If an employers doesn’t pay fair or is mean to the employees then they will suffer as the good workers will leave.
We used to have something approximating that in the past but that is not our current reality.
Our defacto policies encourage business to migrate production out of the country (high taxes and regulation) and make the products overseas and sell the finished products here. (Because their are no downsides to this, taxes, tariffs, etc).
In the meantime were bringing in tens of millions of immigrants (legal and illegal) to compete for the remaining jobs...
Also while refusing to develop our energy resources.. Another 500 Billion/yr or so leaving the country and employing others but not Americans.
I don’t know how to fix this as long as our leaders are insulated from the pain their policies are causing. Heck their not only insulated from the pain but they benefit from these policies.
Actually auto mechanics, plumbers and carpenters are among those who, should they desire it, probably can afford a beach house and vacations in Switzerland.
The ‘poor’ today have a much higher standard of living than the poor of a few decades ago, and so the definition is a moving, relative target. Thus, have those who by relative definition are poor as long as some have more—which means forever.
Low wealth or income is a sympton of poverty not the cause of it.
Even with a minimum $20,000 per year many of our countrymen will remain impoverished. Money is just one measure of poverty because there is also moral, physical, and spiritual poverty.
I would think of it more as a bribe. I will give you $20,000 per year if you leave me free to work, earn, spend, and invest as I see fit and not tax me so much that it becomes a disincentive for me to work.
Under my model if you take the $20g you give up your right to vote. “No representation without taxation”.
“Our tax policies and union policies are part of the problem, but the bottomline is that we cannot compete internationally unless we want to live like peasants and put up with scandalous amounts of pollution.”
I don’t necessarily agree. I think that we can compete against the Third World, simply because their corruption prevents them, in large part, from benefiting from their cheap labor structure...possibly to the point where it’s completely negated. We’ve never ALLOWED ourselves to try to compete, because every time we start making progress, a new ‘crisis’ (like Global Warming) pops up and causes us to shoot ourselves in the foot.
But I will definitely agree with you on labor (i.e., unions), BIG-TIME. Also agree on tax structure, and will add our legal system, racial quotas, and excessive worker safety regulations.
I dream of the day we start addressing those problem - because if we do, we might just kick butt again in the world.
That is an exaggeration.
The Chinese economy loses a large number of manual, factory jobs to automation each year. US factories are highly automated -- you're more likely to lose your job to a robot rather than a Chinaman
Secondly, the average life expectancy shows that the average life expectancy of the Chinese (overall) is 82.2 years and we have a life expectancy of 78.3 years --> so they live longer than us
Polluted rivers -- you are correct on that count
What is hurting us is the increased federal regulations, not just about environment, but about taxes, workers etc.
What is also hurting us is the taxation rule that a company gets double taxed on earnings abroad if it tries to bring that money back to the US. Net result -- companies prefer to keep that money abroad and so build and invest abroad more and more.
Finally -- the US has no poverty really -- compare the "poor" here with those in India or Bangladesh -- our "poor" have a large TV and a couple of cars and do not starve...-- thank GOD and America for that.