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[Sheb]

The issue is that other countries will retaliate. There is room for tariffs in developing economies, but in a mature economy like the US, it's just dumb.

[LoSboccacc]

also customer won't care. outsourced company can just lower their margin and out-compete locals to the point the price is 50% composed of the tariff, at which point people will be in the streets.

something that worked for a while was bombing the heck out of oil producer so that transport price became a real issue. but do the same with tariff on fuel and you'd get 'people in the streets' all over again.

[martinuzz]

Was gonna put this in the WTF thread, but it's probably better in pol: Remember them rascally Bundy boys from that wildlife refuge dustup? They were acquitted today.

That's surprising, and bad. It kinda gives off a signal that armed resistance against the evil federal government is okay. Very very dumb, with the current situation of Trump supporters threatening violence if Hillary wins. They just legalized civil war.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Glad to see we're all still committed to exaggerated hysteria. The outcome of the trial is not much of a surprise. Despite their very noticeable actions, the Bundy group did not actually enact violence against anyone with the possible exception of the one who was killed by the police.

That very killing is most certainly the reason they were acquitted. Any jury is going to be easily swayed by portraying them as seeking liberty when one of their own was gunned down as a result.

You know, it's funny, I don't even clearly remember how this whole thing got started.

[sluissa]

Glad to see we're all still committed to exaggerated hysteria. The outcome of the trial is not much of a surprise. Despite their very noticeable actions, the Bundy group did not actually enact violence against anyone with the possible exception of the one who was killed by the police.

That very killing is most certainly the reason they were acquitted. Any jury is going to be easily swayed by portraying them as seeking liberty when one of their own was gunned down as a result.

You know, it's funny, I don't even clearly remember how this whole thing got started.

IIRC, they wanted to graze their cattle on federal land and while they had done that in the past, wildlife management said no to it this time around. Or I might be thinking about the movie Open Range...

[Neonivek]

It is uncommon but there has been justifiable homicide enacted against the police.

I should state, however, that the courts do NOT look kindly upon it and the law is set in place where unless you are 100% acquitted you are going to jail for a long long time. (It is skewed towards the police, but in so far that it protects citizens.)

But that isn't my issue really. Politically it is that there is this weird double insanity.

People are starting to think all the police are hopelessly corrupt and shouldn't be trusted...

While everyone else thinks the police are perfect angels and cannot possible be corrupt... (They do this by their actions: "Of COURSE the police have every right to try to incriminate you if they spot you filming the scene to make sure they are doing their job")

Creating this weird playground... Where people are becoming MORE paranoid because the system bends over backwards to protect the police over citizens with very half-truth excuses as to why ("But the police's privacy" Me: "I dunno... how about we require a warrant to even see that footage or have a review committee that looks at that footage first. You know... the same laws that apply to regular folk"). Not that the police aren't entitled to protection themselves mind you. (OHHH LOOK I USED THE TERM ENTITLED!)

But that is something for the policing thread.

[Flying Dice]

Protectionist trade policy only really works when there's industry left to protect, after all. At least it would fuck the multinationals, but that wouldn't exactly make things better now that they've already got their claws buried in the world economy.

Hell, we have industry, it just doesn't need more people or much in the way of protection. For all folks kvetch about manufacturing et al leaving the states, we're still one of the major world powerhouses there, and so far as I'm aware even our strictly domestic stuff has levels of productivity that could only uncharitably be called merely sky high and still rising. Can't do too much to fix that with protectionist policies.

Unless said policies involving taking sledgehammers to modern factories and infrastructure, I guess

Still a hell of a lot less than we used to. The economic prosperity of the mid-20th century, the boom of the American middle class, the cultural mindset of "yer 18, got a high school diploma and second-hand car with a few hundred bucks, now get out the door and find a jerb", that was all born from the extreme number of jobs that an untrained high school graduate could easily acquire and move up in, and a large portion of those were factory jobs.

That third point, the cultural attitude? It's nearly dead now, for two reasons: there are far fewer >good< jobs available, and most of those that do exist require inside contacts and/or substantial post-secondary education (i.e. substantial debt). Some people blame migrant workers, but the truth is that most of the jobs that helped build the American middle class were exported to workforces that would do the same work for cents on the dollar, because muh short-term profits.

[Frumple]

... no, most of it was just due to automation and advances in production. American productivity in terms of the stuff those jobs used to come from has largely either not budged, kept growing, or barely slowed down. And yet the workforce continues to shrink, and it's not going to stop. Outsourcing is a thing but when it comes down to it the core issue for unskilled workers is that they're increasingly just not fucking needed anymore. Not that the job can get done cheaper elsewhere (though it's definitely an issue, it's not the major one), that the job can't be done cheaper by humans period, or that one person is now doing the job of several (dozen).

Even if you magically ended all outsourcing overnight and produced absolutely everything locally (and it somehow didn't smash the economy into little pieces in the process) those jobs still wouldn't be coming back to nearly the extent they used to, and even if it actually slowed things down they'd still be bleeding out. Literally the only way to fix that would be burning down modern factories and infrastructure, or assuming direct control and instituting employee productivity caps or something mad like that. What has mostly cost these folks their jobs isn't cheaper labor elsewhere, it's increased productivity per worker. Even if you artificially increased the price of labor you'd still be losing jobs compared to even a few decades ago, never mind during the height of factory employment.

Effectively what's happened/happening to former blue collar/manufacturing work is the same thing that happened to farm labor back when agriculture started getting better equipment. We've still got roughly the same (or better) muscle when it comes to actual production*. We just don't need nearly as many people to do it.

*The net domestic growth, by the by? Averages out to ~3-4% per annum since 1920. Manufacturing output has been increasing the whole goddamn time the workforce has been shrinking. Roughly 370% increase in production over the last ~century.

[sluissa]

I agree with that general idea, Frumple. But I disagree with the premise that the workforce has shrunk and it doesn't take into account population growth either.

There is certainly an increase in productivity since 1920 but some of that can be attributed to population growth (Currently above 300% of 1920's population) and the fact that people are living longer and working longer as well. I think it's probably a flat out falsehood to say that the workforce has shrunk since 1920.

Automation is a factor, and a factor that's going to become increasingly important in the upcoming years, but for the moment it's still cheaper for a lot of workplaces to have a significant human factor in there. As good at automation is at specialized, repetitive tasks, humans are still better and cheaper for a lot of tasks and unrivaled in their ability to adapt to new tasks. You can make an efficient machine to harvest corn. But that machine will be useless to build a house or cook a hamburger.

Eventually we will automate everything and we're on the cusp of a big jump in that direction, but it's not here quite yet. Farming had a big jump at the invention of the combustion powered machines. Factories have slowly automated over the years with probably the last big jump in the 80s when computer controlled robots and tools came into big use. But we're coming close to the point where more automation will require some radical new idea to be implemented that'll be another large jump.

[penguinofhonor]

How much would population growth affect jobs though? It creates more workers but it also creates just as much new demand for work.

[sluissa]

Frumples argument was that automation cause a better than 300% increase in productivity since 1920. I was simply saying some of that increase is attributed to population growth.

[UXLZ]

And the question is, what's going to happen when those jumps start becoming larger and more frequent? When the automation gets to the extent that only an extremely small number of highly specialized jobs exist? (Assuming everything doesn't just self-destruct in the transition.)

Will we try to hold onto a rapidly ageing and soon to be worthless system/variant of capitalism, or will we try to evolve into something better?

[Neonivek]

Personally I am picturing what I shall call the Austerity apocalypse.

Where everyone who is rich will be rich forever... and everyone else will be poor forever.

And there is nothing anyone can do because the Rich have the power to stop the poor no matter how many there are.

That is my prediction for the future.

[Frumple]

There is certainly an increase in productivity since 1920 but some of that can be attributed to population growth (Currently above 300% of 1920's population) and the fact that people are living longer and working longer as well. I think it's probably a flat out falsehood to say that the workforce has shrunk since 1920.

The raw numbers, no. Since the 70s (you can adjust the date range near the top), yes, but not the 20s. Percentage of the workforce? Since the 40s (you'll want to compare page 879 & 880, specifically the non-ag growth and manufacturing shrink -- goods producing employment in general has been dropping (again, largely because we've been getting better at it), but manufacturing work has been dropping faster). Possibly further, considering the 1919 percentage. Pain in the ass to find good comparison data on this stuff, though. It's definitely out there but I don't really have nearly the energy needed to collect it together anymore and if anyone's done a sensible workup I couldn't find it with the amount of effort I was willing to expend to look.

How much would population growth affect jobs though? It creates more workers but it also creates just as much new demand for work.

As for that, I've already lost the numbers trying to hunt things up, but iirc I saw labor force growth averaged around 1.7% per year since a ways back. You can get an eyeball* if you hit top picks under labor force statistics, then civilian labor force level (LNS11000000) and adjust the data display right (more formatting options, year as far back as it'll go, include 12 month percentage, scroll to the bottom table it should generate). Can't seem to convince it to actually display the annual averages, but you don't really need it to get the gist of things. Again, manufacturing output, averages out to ~3-4% (3.8, more specifically). Productivity's been going up faster than our work force has. Notably so. And that while the portion of our workforce dedicated to that production has been shrinking.

Frumples argument was that automation cause a better than 300% increase in productivity since 1920.

... no, no it wasn't.

*It's really bloody irritating trying to share data on our bloody BLS site, so apologies for not just linking the data directly. Damn thing needs some sort of linking option for generated tables, but if it has one I can't find it.

[sluissa]

Fair enough, Frumple. Didn't realize the employee numbers had stagnated that badly since WW2.