03-18-2023, 10:08 AM
(03-17-2023, 09:54 AM)Wyche Wrote: I was a big Gary Johnson supporter, until he flipped on the TPP. Just my opinion, but that signaled that big money had gotten to him somewhere along the line. I bowed out.
I've had a change of heart about TPP, Globalization, isolationism fairly recently.
I think we're seeing the US go with more isolationist trade policies regardless of the party in power. In theory, this is fine (for us). The US has the resources to be almost completely self-sufficient in time. They just need to get the manufacturing infrastructure up to par to keep the supply chains cranking at warp speed.
I always figured that this would mean better, higher paying jobs for Americans based on the need for labor. To an extent, it has. The only problem with that is that while wages have increased, the cost of goods and services has gone batshit crazy. Inflation is a thing, and with the higher wages, people keep buying shit as companies keep raising price points. There's no incentive for them to control prices if people keep paying them, and they are.
We can have cheap crap fast while making less money with a global economy or we can have expensive stuff that we wait forever on and still can't afford (although the waiting part may go away). It's not that I favor globalism or isolationism, it's that I don't think either make much difference. Either way, the middle class never wins.
