General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: When are we ever, as a people, going to start to _try_ to make this country less miserable [View all]JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)was lots of demand for the production of our manufacturing, much of it in our own country.
Now, we still have a lot of demand, but instead of satisfying that demand with products manufactured or produced by our own labor in our own country, we buy a lot of cheap stuff, much of it rather poorly made -- junk if you will.
That is hurting not just our economy but our ability to be self-sufficient. It is destroying the greatest treasure we have -- the skills of our workers who are passing hamburgers instead of making things we need or want.
"Free" trade is very costly for Americans.
Let the Chinese make stuff and sell it to themselves. Let us make stuff and sell it to ourselves. Nothing wrong with trade, but there is something wrong when imports are such a large portion of products bought in a country of our size.
Yes. Automation is displacing workers too. But the benefits of automation should be more widely shared by our society. Instead of being of benefit to all of us, automation has become a tool with which people who could be contributing a great deal to our society are pushed to the side and impoverished, slowly but surely.
A fairer tax system that spreads the wealth not directly but through programs like free tuition at state schools, free pre-school for every child (common in Europe) from the age of three up, single payer insurance and other programs that Bernie Sanders is the answer.
Those who have and earn high salaries or profits should pay more and higher taxes. Otherwise the existing trend of very, very high and increasingly high disparity of wealth will become a social problem, a serious one.