What kind of jobs are you picturing?

What kind of jobs are you picturing in car production?

Well I certainly hope you are right. But there are some significant reasons to think it might not work out that way.

First of all, the industrial capacity of Detroit no longer exists. Many factories have been torn down or repurposed. And you can't just pull the boards off the windows and start modern manufacturing in an old, rusted-out warehouse built in 1959. It would require billions in investment, and it's often cheaper to build new facilities for high-tech manufacturing, which requires clean, automated environments. It will take a long time and a lot of money to create the manufacturing capacity that already exists elsewhere. Also, the skilled work force of the Motor City days is gone. Many former factory workers have retrained for other fields or retired, so rebuilding a specialized labor pool would take time, at least several years. There is no way we will be making Barbies in the U.S. by next Christmas.

Secondly, American car manufacturers are already employing all the American designers, safety testers, show drivers, etc. that they need. They already have established sales and advertising departments in place to market cars in the U.S. market. Whether the cars are made in the U.S., China, or wherever, these departments won't expand significantly just because of a shift in manufacturing location.

Thirdly, all of these jobs are in rapid decline due to automation. For example, advertising and sales are increasingly driven by AI. The latest LLMs can now design advertising campaigns, target audiences, optimize spending, and even handle customer service tasks. What used to require dozens of people across departments (designers, copywriters, strategists, analysts) can now often be done by a single computer system, or at most, a small team. Companies will need fewer people for these jobs as time goes on, not more.

Similarly, fourth, the number of new manufacturing jobs would be small and shrinking. A factory that employed 100,000 workers in the 1960s might need only about a thousand today, tomorrow even fewer. And have you heard of "dark factories"? These are production centers, entire assembly lines, with machines that run 24/7 in the pitch black, because they don't need light...there are *no* people inside. A fully automated "dark factory" in Beijing is producing over 10 million smartphones a year. These production lines are incredibly efficient and could soon replace all traditional manufacturing.

Fifth, American companies did not respond to the first round of tariffs by increasing jobs in the United States. While a few companies tried reshoring, most began moving production to other countries. On the contrary, it took a significant government intervention and investment from the IRA and CHIPS acts to lure some businesses to create manufacturing in the USA. So, we know what works for incentivizing domestic manufacturing, and it's not tariffs. (And it will still take a long time, and create fewer and fewer jobs. It's important to have the capacity to manufacture critical components domestically, but the number of humans needed is rapidly shrinking just like in all other fields.)

So, tariffs might not Make America go back to the Great days of Detroit in 1960. They definitely will not work without significant price increases on almost everything Americans consume in the meantime. It's not just toys. It's appliances, phones and electronics, housewares, batteries, clothing, cleaning products, eyeglasses, light bulbs, fans and heaters, blenders and waffle irons, spark plugs and brake pads, dishes and utensils, towels and sheets, shoes and hats, cosmetics, toothbrushes, razors and hair dryers. How soon do you think all that manufacturing capacity can get up and running in the U.S.? Next Christmas?

If the answer is no, Americans could be facing years of significant shortages, price increases and inflationary pressures across all product sectors that will almost certainly grind the economy to a slow crawl, if not a total Depression. Perhaps you (or Trump) are right, and that's what it will take to Make America Great Again. But, do you really think THAT is what Trump supporters voted for? Years of painful sacrifice?

This is what, for the past twenty years. Wealth is heavily concentrated in the top of the economy, and there is not enough money left in the bottom for most people to have a good life.

It increases profits. Undocumented workers can be forced to work for illegal wages under illegal conditions without recourse. Do you think companies will absorb the cost if they have to start paying legal wages and improve working conditions? There's concern that they will most likely pass those costs on to consumers. That would cause inflation in the agricultural sector and make food more expensive.

It could easily be argued that Walmart and others keep costs artificially low by exploiting workers and externalizing costs. Some think the cost of groceries should be higher, to reflect the true costs of extraction. However, I don't think that is the argument being made here. The promise of the Trump campaign was a return to lower cost of living. I don't see any mechanism available to create that.

But, I'm sure you don't agree that's how it works, so how do you see it? And how do you know?

Yes, it IS akin to slave labor. I'm fine with putting an end to that. You are too, I'm sure. But, is that what Republicans are working for? How does that square with their promise to lower costs?

So, Republicans are deporting people for their own protection? Really? Why didn't they just say THAT? Trump said we are deporting them because they ARE dangerous, not IN danger.


Here is why this would result in unintended consequences. One, people are, for the most part, coming here of their own free will, because as bad as working conditions are here for undocumented immigrants, they are even WORSE where they are coming from. So, there ARE incentives that draw people here. So two, if we wanted people to stop coming here, brutal roundups are not necessary. We would just need to crack down on businesses that hire undocumented workers. If there was literally no way to make money here, people would not come. Those laws are not enforced, however, resulting in the labor conditions you described. Which means that if the people willing to do it anyway are not here, then three, businesses will have a labor shortage, and food will rot in the fields.

Many suggest that Americans who need work would fill those jobs. But four, unemployment is low, no one would switch to this, and Americans have labor rights. Business who employ Americans have to pay a lot more and have a lot better working conditions. So, the prices skyrocket as those costs are passed on to the consumer and shortages diminish supply. Nothing would change as far as prices lowering, in fact they would change quite a bit as far as prices highering.

And it's not reasonable to suppose that working conditions would really improve under an anti-regulation charter like Trump's. Their plan is to gut the kind of oversight that protects Americans and even undocumented immigrants from the worst conditions. So, five, the likely unintended results is that any Americans forced into these jobs would simply have to endure the same exploitive slave labor conditions that undocumented immigrants are enduring now, without recourse. Getting rid of undocumented immigrants, sadly, may just change who has to work and live in those conditions.

So, only if Republicans voted for much higher food prices and increased exploitation of Americans, will they get what they wanted.

My thought is that no one should work under those conditions, and people who want to should be able to work here and then leave, and that higher food prices should be subsidized to remain low even when everyone in the supply chain is working with dignity. But that's not popular, lol.

This is what they wanted. This is what they voted for.

Trump has said openly and proudly that it's okay to "grab 'em by the pussy". He's openly threatened non-white immigrants.

In 2020 Trump lost and tried to overturn the election in a violent coup.

Trump himself tried to withhold emergency funds for California and Washington State when they had wildfires, and for Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. He lied during the rescue efforts for Hurricanes Helene and Milton and impeded FEMA workers from helping people.

Trump instituted a family separation policy which removed over 5,000 little kids from their parents. To this day at least a thousand of them have not been re-united.

Trump mismanaged the Covid crisis, and it resulted in 270,000 unnecessary deaths.

So the guy who bankrupted SIX businesses and increased the national debt by 39% is going to fix the economy?


Fact Check: Trump did file for bankruptcy 6 times

There is nothing you can say about anyone that your guy is not guilty of times six, sorry.

I know most people here have already voted, or at least have already made up their minds, so I'm not trying to convince anyone to change their committed vote. However every election since '08 I have written a post describing my reasons for my voting choice. So here goes.

My reasons for voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz:

1. Kamala Harris is a decent person. I saw her when she ran for president the first time and I am really impressed with her growth since then. She is a much more polished speaker and when she is challenged, her inner core of strength comes out, like when she won the debate. Also, Tim Walz is a decent person, a nice guy. They have been wrong about stuff, but seem capable of error-correction. That is the most important quality in a decent person that I know of.

2. Reproductive freedom. Abortion is a private matter and absolutely no one should be part of the decision except those involved. The right to handle that matter privately herself is the cornerstone of a woman's right to full equality and bodily autonomy. And, abortion bans hurt everyone, including men and children. It makes people parents when they are too young or can't afford it, or when their relationship can't bear it. That helps no one. Harris and the Democrats will protect reproductive freedom at the national level and help make sure it's legal and safe everywhere, preventing a flood of death and social ills.

3. Kamala's plans are good. Economically speaking, the Biden administration did a kind of phenomenal job of bringing down inflation, reigning in unemployment, investing in infrastructure. The American economy is on fire right now, yet stably balanced as well, absolutely the envy of the world. Kamala can build on that momentum instead of stopping it in its tracks.

And, I'm perfectly aware that the kitchen table economy is a very different thing, and that incomes have flatlined in this country for five decades. The middle and working classes, whatever the numbers, are suffering from crushing stagnation. That's not going to change until we confront rapacious capitalism. But, Kamala has her own plans to help that too, in the form of tax breaks and social aid to start families and build small businesses. Twenty-three Nobel prize winning economists - more than half of the living U.S. recipients - have said that her economic plans are "vastly superior" to her opponents'.

If you want America to keep booming, AND have some of that boom help ordinary people, Harris is the choice.

4. Civil discourse. The only person who rose above the last several weeks of really horrible and childish insult slinging is Harris. She has maintained a cool and level head, stayed focused on policy, done serious outreach beyond her base, and has basically acted entirely like an adult when others, notably, have not. I am sick to death of insults. They make this society an unpleasant place to be, for no reason, and just constantly waste time. I look forward to hearing adults talk about matters they understand and making plans to fix problems. That is what this moment calls for.

5. Functional government. The government under the Biden administration has been running the country and getting aid to hurricane victims and doing all the jobs it's supposed to do with competency, and has maintained the basic functions of federal services without any large-scale breakdowns or disruptions. Gutting the federal government and replacing experienced civil servants with loyalists will make government - our main tool for getting things done - run like a broken clock. That will hurt every American and the world.

6. CLIMATE CHANGE. As always this is my most important reason. We are running out of time for making meaningful change to prevent catastrophic impacts for future generations. Changing climate is driving migrations and population pressures already, and we can see the cracks showing in every part of the rich world as a result. It's unsustainable. And, we have a responsibility to maintain biodiversity. Kamala Harris has plans to address climate change, to ease the U.S. off fossil fuels in the next decade and to aggressively pursue environmental justice. We can't afford to wait even another four years to start taking this seriously.

That's my reasoning, thanks for hearing me out. I'd urge anyone sitting on the fence to consider this one last time. Thanks.





23 Nobel Prize-winning economists call Harris’ economic plan ‘vastly superior’ to Trump’s
CNN

The envy of the world - The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust.
The Economist

Vote for Kamala Harris to Support Science, Health and the Environment
Scientific American

Trump’s vow to fire thousands of ‘crooked’ federal workers prompts alarm
LA Times