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Realistically... How fucked is the US?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2024
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Extremely, tarrifs will erase the middle class. All regulations will be repealed allowing even more corporate power and influence. We're about to experience the Gilded Age on crack mixed with the burning hells of our mother Earth scorned.
They're done with the middle class here. They don't want to raise the poverty level worldwide, they want to bring us down to match the rest of the world. It's strip-mining time, we're too expensive for the international rich's tastes.
Time to stock up on the automatic rifles they want us all to have so much, and learn carpentry to build some guillotines.
Maybe the French will help us again, they've got some experience with this.
Why do you need to learn carpentry? Isn’t it a slot with a big metal blade? Add a rope so you can pull it up, and let it go to make it work…
You don't want it to fall apart after one use, see? Need to make sure it can stand up to the job. We don't want to build to Harbor Freight standards here. Take pride in our work.
Look, I'm no guillotine-ologist, but I think if I was going to construct one I would forgo my usual method of measure once and cut 5 to 10 times until I have to go get another board because I've destroyed the last one.
the French forgot about when to use guillotines decades ago
We dont need guillotines. We need to heal our culture and unify Americans by ending the two party system that thrives off our division. We are so big we should be lead by a coalition of factions. Not whatever the fuck this is.
Ah yes, the same rhetoric that got us into this mess. Do nothing that actually makes a difference, but try to "fix" it from within. Meanwhile everything is being stolen with intentional legal loopholes.
How do you propose removing the two party system, which the two parties comprising the entirety of the government have every incentive to keep because it's the only reason they have the power they do? The only way, as designed an within the existing system is to get enough representation in to force that change, which means replacing 2/3 of Congress essentially at the same time to force super majorities on both sides.
Do I need to remind everyone that the French Revolution eventually fed their own into the guillotines? No? We're just keen on repeating every bit of history until we're baked off this rock? Okay. Let's do that instead of trying to ratify citizen petitions, getting collective action, and actually building a unified ideal over time. Nah, thats much too hard. Buy some wood, meet up with the three other willing people, and go stand outside some politicians house with a guillotine while he calls his donners all scared and they write up more protest laws.
Those work on a local level, not federal. Citizens have no control of anything Federal. The Federal government doesn't have to listen to the citizens at all. The only consequence for them is during re-election. There they'll just gerrymander the districts to force a win either way overall.
The federal government relies on each branch overseeing each other. And the Republicans have a stacked blatantly partisan Supreme Court that gave the office of the President total immunity. And a Republican majority in both sides of Congress completely willing to let Trump do what he wants as far of the plan.
Fixing this at a federal level will require getting to the exact opposite point we're at now since we've allowed it to get to this point.
Then local it is. We gotta do something or die my guy.
Tariffs will not only erase the middle class but also erase our topsoil like it's 1924 all over again if farmers aren't subsidized and everything is left to go fallow. In terms of dollars we're pretty even in terms of agricultural imports and exports, but in terms of acreage... We push a shitload of soy, corn, and wheat. We're more than a little fucked in lots of ways if we're hit with retaliatory tariffs, but the biggest one is if farmers don't have any reason to plant crops and don't have any money to do it, we're doomed for dustbowl days.
Don't even get me started on water, fluoride is one thing but if they start removing a lot of other stuff like phosphate and permanganate the entire country's municipal water supply will be as bad as Flint MI.
I'm hoping Trump doesn't pull off 95% of the stuff he talked about due to unbridled incompetence because if he still manages to pull off 80% of it we're gonna be fucked
No they'll keep things like the farm subsidies, may even expand them. The tariffs will leave those out. That's the socialism their base is 100% reliant on. They won't risk turning on the rural farmers until the end when it they're not a threat. They've already shown a complete willingness to ignore absolutely everything else until this point.
I'm hoping. Last trade war, Trump basically rolled out of bed one morning and decided to try it on China as some temporary transient thing in order to convey that the US has a lot of leverage (and it blew up in our faces), which is an entirely different beast than unilateral tariffs as part of fiscal policy. I have no clue how much it'd cost to just subsidize everything in perpetuity but I hope it isn't some ridiculous sum.
He'll probably do something like allowing us to sell semiconductors to foreign nations in exchange for dropping tariffs on agricultural exports which is also really fucking boneheaded. The art of the deal, giving away the only shit that has lots of value for us. China outpacing the US in tech is something Europe wouldn't want, but if we cut ties with Europe they'd probably warm up to China and we'd become a really big insular nation that can't even sustain its economy as is
If he manages to pull off even 25% we will be fucked until the last soul melts on the 200 degree pavement. Its never the time for regressionism, but now is especially a bad time.
We're already net exporter of petroleum but they're intending to carve up our parks and stuff, even though we won't be able to sell it for more than the cost of producing it. Everyone will slam us with tariffs and go to other countries for their fix, and it'll be cheaper than bottled water for us.
The idiots who don't understand what a pronoun is and are terrified of their kids learning about them in English class will have cheap gas, but their kids will endure a literal hell for it.
And they'll think Trump's doing a good job for all of it, blame some totally unrelated shit for our interest rate being at 25%
I'm over it. Be fucking stupid. Sell shit out for cheap. Stain the future with the blood of our children. We are out of time on the climate. The Earth will swallow us as our madness consumes us. Its a triple pronged rape of humanity's future.
Ending farming and allowing nature to return would prevent a dust bowl. Allowing a field to go fallow means that a whole lot of plants start growing.
It might do that in some fields but it'd take ages in those spots where all you see is corn as far as the eye can see. Might be switchgrass growing in a drainage ditch but it'd just creep in like capillary action on a paper towel. You'd need to have people out there casting seed at least
That’s because it is soil that has been destroyed through decades of mismanagement. That is what caused the previous dust bowl.
Okay don't rage at me. How do tarrifs affect the middle class?
We end up paying them. Not countries, or corporations. The cost gets passed to consumers.
Okay, but why is that specific to the middle class?
Also, wouldn't it make sense to tarrif all the businesses who are using other countries for cheap labor?
What good do tarrifs do towards companies if they pass that on to consumers? When will that price ever touch their wallets? Its not specific to the middle class, the poor will also be eradicated. I just thought I'd mention we're heading towards a shit ass society where you are either poor or rich. Theres no in between, theres no comfort, theres just a boot stomping on the face of humanity forever.
Well it should hit them in the wallet when people choose not to buy that thing because there's something better at the same price here.
But it doesnt. It hits us in our wallets, dude.
Don't buy the stuff. Buy the American stuff so it goes back in American wallets. That's the idea right?
Do I need to show you the sheer volume of imports? What the fuck is even made in America? Electronic air dusters and other random assortments? Definitely not the items we use and buy on a daily basis.
But you know what, you seem to think this is a great fucken idea. So I'll just see you in four years and we'll see what's what. Its not going to be pretty. The guy said so himself.
Do you think these things need to be made by China? What's so wrong about making it profitable to make them in America?
Because capitalism dictates you make it where its cheapest to make it. Because a lot of these companies aren't American and it won't be made here. Because a lot of us won't survive the next four years with 30% across the board. American manufacturing is great
Okay, so you get that we make things where it's cheapest and that tarrifs raise the price of outside business, and you're not seeing how that moves manufacturing jobs to America?
Why would they? You can't beat Chinese factory workers at less than a dollar a day. This won't do shit but make things more expensive. American Workers would have to be devalued massively to move the jobs back. Is that something you're willing to put up with?
I don't think you understand. Things SHOULD be more expensive and that money should go back in our own pockets instead of the pockets of people who exploit cheap labor elsewhere.
I dont think YOU understand, that money isn't going in our pockets.
Maybe not yours, but I work hard enough that I became the QA director of my company in less than a year. I'm doing okay and so are my techs.
Good for you then. I guess its all good guys. Mango is good so we're good. Thats all that matters is that Mango is good.
Do you think we should be entitled to products made by exploited labor classes? Is it okay that we're okay and they're not?
No. I know the jobs won't come back here even with the tariffs. Its not okay and this is not a solution.
Mango you got to get your head outta your ass. If you think that tariffs will make jobs come back to America and even more so because you're doing good, oh brother.
Example: I buy a t-shirt 15 dollars in China. You're saying that now we can buy the shirt in the US. For 49 dollars? The money goes back to us? First of all no it doesn't it still goes to the big leagues in the t-shirt company while minimum wage is 7.25 dollars.
Secondly: if you can buy the t-shirt with tariffs 25 dollars instead from China, you still do. Why the fuck would you buy it for 49 in the US? Cause it's American? You know people got bills to pay and health problems right? There's a reality we live in