I live along a major north/south highway in the western states. Especially in the winter when there are few tourists the large trucks out number passenger cars. I often wonder if they are carrying stupid stuff like the stuffed toys that look like the Peeps marshmallow candy, are as large as a small child and are made in China. If the manufacturing and shipping of that kind of shit is halted tariffs and recession can't be all bad.
The reason manufacturing moved off-shore and into cheaper labor markets is just that, cheaper labor. Back in the early '90's (?) Walmart prided on "American Made", but Sam Walton got fed-up haggling with American manufacturers and led the exodus of American manufacturers to Asia and Mexico and Canada for cheaper labor costs, which has been utterly left out of the current BS from DC. It can never be brought back until the high labor costs are dealt with, one way or another. Nice pics, Max! Gregg
Max, i agree that much of the gist of the tariffs is an economic 'warfare' jab at the current shift, thus as you mention, an attempt to "maintain hegemony", though in a way it seems they may all be in on it together as far as not attending to the needs of natural world/Mother Earth. Also noting a NYPost article "Economist Brent Neiman shocked to learn Trump admin used his formula to justify tariffs: ‘Got it wrong’".
bingo! ...and once I figured this out, I started hoping for a permanent crash of the stock market. the essence of capitalism is accumulation, which in the long run ends up where we are.
Thanks, again, Max. It is very hard for humans to not feel/think that "normal is good enough," and therefore settle for that. When something radically evil, like fascism and the current administration becomes our prevailing reality, people yearn for a return to feeding off the crumbs that spilled from the old normal table. We also get some people who are ready to rise up and demand a little more than the old pile of crumbs, as in Bernie and AOC's rallying for "Medicare for all," a basic living wage, and the vague promises of the "Green New Deal." But, 30,000 people showing up for such a rally in a city of 2 million people does not exactly say that the masses are ready for revolution. What I am hearing the loudest from them is, "don't take away our crumbs!" But, the point I am trying to get to here is that, even if we had a successful democratic socialist revolution of some kind, economic equality without a reduction of our collective ecological footprints (currently at 5 Earths needed to regenerate for the U.S. and 1.7 Earths for the whole world) would keep us on the trajectory toward collapse and extinction. If we only raise the "standard of living" and levels of consumption for the poor and working class to levels even a small fraction of that of the economic top 10 percenters, the ecological destruction would accelerate greatly. A "sustainable" or Earth-regenerative economic equality would require enormous downward economic mobility from the extreme over-consumers of the global north (whom William Catton labeled "Homo colossus"), who probably have ecological foot prints ranging between 10 and 1000 Earths needed to regenerate. A sustainable/regenerative economy would require everybody to have one Earth footprints. That would mean a very radical change in technologies and the end of modernity. Too much misdirection of human societies has been normalized for way too long for most humans to even go there in their minds. The stigma against "utopian" creative thinking doesn't help either.
Hey George, thanks for the comment. I agree. It’s so easy to get comfortable with the way things are. I know that from personal experience. It’s hard for us to think in utopian ways. CELDF has a saying they often repeat, I’m not sure where it comes from: “It’s hard to defeat an opponent who has outposts in your mind.”
I live along a major north/south highway in the western states. Especially in the winter when there are few tourists the large trucks out number passenger cars. I often wonder if they are carrying stupid stuff like the stuffed toys that look like the Peeps marshmallow candy, are as large as a small child and are made in China. If the manufacturing and shipping of that kind of shit is halted tariffs and recession can't be all bad.
Boxed breakfast cereal is not much better. High volume, low weight, low nutrition.
You got that right! It is hellaciously expensive too.
I just made some significant edits to this piece, to add a bit more complexity to my arguments in the wake of Trump backing down from his original tariffs. I also added a lengthy excerpt from this piece I published last July (https://maxwilbert.substack.com/p/a-quarter-century-later-battle-of), and linked to this piece from Vincent Kelley, which influenced my arguments here (https://vincentkelley.substack.com/p/we-are-all-trumpians-now).
The reason manufacturing moved off-shore and into cheaper labor markets is just that, cheaper labor. Back in the early '90's (?) Walmart prided on "American Made", but Sam Walton got fed-up haggling with American manufacturers and led the exodus of American manufacturers to Asia and Mexico and Canada for cheaper labor costs, which has been utterly left out of the current BS from DC. It can never be brought back until the high labor costs are dealt with, one way or another. Nice pics, Max! Gregg
Max, i agree that much of the gist of the tariffs is an economic 'warfare' jab at the current shift, thus as you mention, an attempt to "maintain hegemony", though in a way it seems they may all be in on it together as far as not attending to the needs of natural world/Mother Earth. Also noting a NYPost article "Economist Brent Neiman shocked to learn Trump admin used his formula to justify tariffs: ‘Got it wrong’".
bingo! ...and once I figured this out, I started hoping for a permanent crash of the stock market. the essence of capitalism is accumulation, which in the long run ends up where we are.
Thanks, again, Max. It is very hard for humans to not feel/think that "normal is good enough," and therefore settle for that. When something radically evil, like fascism and the current administration becomes our prevailing reality, people yearn for a return to feeding off the crumbs that spilled from the old normal table. We also get some people who are ready to rise up and demand a little more than the old pile of crumbs, as in Bernie and AOC's rallying for "Medicare for all," a basic living wage, and the vague promises of the "Green New Deal." But, 30,000 people showing up for such a rally in a city of 2 million people does not exactly say that the masses are ready for revolution. What I am hearing the loudest from them is, "don't take away our crumbs!" But, the point I am trying to get to here is that, even if we had a successful democratic socialist revolution of some kind, economic equality without a reduction of our collective ecological footprints (currently at 5 Earths needed to regenerate for the U.S. and 1.7 Earths for the whole world) would keep us on the trajectory toward collapse and extinction. If we only raise the "standard of living" and levels of consumption for the poor and working class to levels even a small fraction of that of the economic top 10 percenters, the ecological destruction would accelerate greatly. A "sustainable" or Earth-regenerative economic equality would require enormous downward economic mobility from the extreme over-consumers of the global north (whom William Catton labeled "Homo colossus"), who probably have ecological foot prints ranging between 10 and 1000 Earths needed to regenerate. A sustainable/regenerative economy would require everybody to have one Earth footprints. That would mean a very radical change in technologies and the end of modernity. Too much misdirection of human societies has been normalized for way too long for most humans to even go there in their minds. The stigma against "utopian" creative thinking doesn't help either.
Hey George, thanks for the comment. I agree. It’s so easy to get comfortable with the way things are. I know that from personal experience. It’s hard for us to think in utopian ways. CELDF has a saying they often repeat, I’m not sure where it comes from: “It’s hard to defeat an opponent who has outposts in your mind.”
Very good and succinct analysis. Thanks, Max.
Note: Today, April 14th, I made another series of substantial edits to this piece.