89
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2024
89 points (96.8% liked)
Asklemmy
43958 readers
1140 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Well. It depends.
If tariffs are sustained, then it can make sense to establish domestic companies that can supply the goods that were previously being outsourced. In that respect, over the long term--and I'm talking, like 20-30+ years--it could be positive. One of the things that made the US economy strong in the 60s was the fact that we had strong labor, and strong manufacturing; outsourcing our manufacturing has harmed labor and the middle class.
But that's all very long-term stuff. It's taken us 40 years to get to where we are now, and bringing manufacturing, and strong unions, back can easily take just as long. In the short term, it's going to be super-bad for the working poor and the middle class.
Looks to me like the strong economy of the 1960s coincided with ending 20-30 years of high tariffs… Sooo…
A lot has changed since the 60s
Absolutely.
But the loss of the manufacturing base, and the subsequent decrease in number of people covered by labor unions, has been one of the single largest factors that's harmed the middle class. It's not the only thing, but a manufacturing base ends up being a pretty important part.