Eh, after the Trump administration rolls back environmental protection, it will be just another of the many things that makes the US a third world country, like no universal health care, old people working, and people taking almost no vacation.
Don't worry, it takes time for outsider peoples' perception of a place to change. Right now it's still largely an idealized "great country, with opportunities for all" to them.
Or, perhaps, the insiders are the ones with the skewed perceptions since the majority of all of our rights are still intact.
I mean, do you guys ever actually follow the end result of your logic? If the USA was as tyrannical as you think, you'd have to be completely insane to stay. Why do you have a death wish? GET OUT! RUN! They're coming for you! Before they read your e-mails and put your family in jail!
Oh wait, that's insane. If the USA was as bad as you guys here think, then you wouldn't be so unabashedly criticizing the state. You'd be in jail, or terrified to speak up. Take a trip to China and see how far criticism of the state gets you.
And further, are you REALLY suggesting that EVERY immigrant to the USA is too stupid or too uninformed to understand the state of our government?
Has nobody here ever talked to someone who lived under a real tyrannical state? Or even... God forbid... googled for a video of an interview with one?
Don't worry though. I'm sure this comment will be downvoted into oblivion to protect people's absurd notion that they're under constant threat. It's okay to believe the sky is falling, but it's not okay to suggest people's wild speculation and phobia might be just that... an irrational phobia. In four years, if Trump is voted out of the office, people will entirely forget all their panic and doom-and-gloom and move on to the next moral outrage. They won't sit there and think "Hmm, maybe I was wrong." They'll just move on to the next threat. They're addicted to fear.
> If the USA was as tyrannical as you think, you'd have to be completely insane to stay.
I wanted to leave the US during the Bush administration. It’s not easy to do. I would have to gain work in a foreign land in which I possessed valued trade skills, adapt to cultural changes, and build a new network in place of existing ties both socially and professionally. I might have give up my pets, acquire new furniture and amenities, and restart my career from a lower tier. I might have to consider regions with harsher climates than I would prefer. I might not be able to relocate with my spouse if she doesn’t want to, or can’t, do the same.
In addition to all of this, there are actually only a handful of countries that would appeal to me (in terms of government and rights afforded to the people). I certainly wouldn't endure all of the above for a system that I found equally corrupt or with fewer protections for its citizens.
> Don't worry though. I'm sure this comment will be downvoted into oblivion to protect people's absurd notion that they're under constant threat.
>I wanted to leave the US during the Bush administration. It’s not easy to do. I would have to gain work in a foreign land in which I possessed valued trade skills, adapt to cultural changes, and build a new network in place of existing ties both socially and professionally. I might have give up my pets, acquire new furniture and amenities, and restart my career from a lower tier. I might have to consider regions with harsher climates than I would prefer. I might not be able to relocate with my spouse if she doesn’t want to, or can’t, do the same.
Isn't the alternative a totalitarian banana republic in your view? Shouldn't these be minor inconveniences in comparison? Syrian refugees have similar concerns when they choose to leave after all, yet they seem to wish to leave and the American left chooses to stay. What is different if not the conditions of the country?
>since the majority of all of our rights are still intact.
It depends on your starting point. If you go back to pre-cold war, they certainly are not. If you go back to the turn of the century, we have even fewer rights. If you go back to the early 1800s, we have even fewer.
>Has nobody here ever talked to someone who lived under a real tyrannical state? Or even... God forbid... googled for a video of an interview with one?
About 13% of the world's adults -- or about 630 million people -- say they would like to leave their country and move somewhere else permanently. For roughly 138 million people, that somewhere else would be the U.S. -- the No. 1 desired destination for potential migrants.
Is that counting only lawful immigration and how many of those where undocumented workers moving back and how many are counted that were legally forced to return to their country?
It's actually not easy to get permanent resident visas in Mexico, which makes me think there is something amiss. They also really, really don't like immigration violations in Mexico.
I'd be very interested in seeing the sources for this statistic.
I don't doubt that it is true, I doubt that it is telling the whole story. Your links seem to indicate that I am right to be reserved in judgement.
Undocumented workers going home or being forced to go home really isn't indicative of any great trend. When American citizens are moving to Mexico at a greater rate than those coming here, that'd be significant.
...leading to a historic milestone: more Americans have been added to the population of Mexico over the past few years than Mexicans have been added to the population of the United States, according to government data in both nations.
The numbers in the article don't line up, or it isn't clear.
Americans now make up more than three-quarters of Mexico’s roughly one million documented foreigners
Indicates ~750K, then goes on to state
the number of Americans legally living and working in Mexico grew to more than 70,000 in 2012
Yeah, 750,000 (or 70,000) really pales in comparison to the number of documented Mexicans in the US. In other words, this just reinforces my understanding that there is no great trend, that the stat is certainly true but woefully out of context and not indicative of any great trend.
I'm also not sure how 750,000 'grew to more than 70,000.'
Let's be honest, really. America has lots of faults but people are still dying to get here and we absolutely don't have a problem getting more people to move here or with retaining local talent. There are about 12,000,000 documented Mexicans living or working in the US.
As a context dropping statement, that's misleading at best.
There are two reasons that occurred. First, the US saw an extremely large immigration wave [1] from Mexico over three decades. The US effectively absorbed 10% of Mexico's entire population. Such vast immigration waves never happen without an eventual return flow. Second, combined with an improved Mexico economy, family reunification became a substantial consideration for immigrants. [2]
The inflow counts included only adult Mexican nationals known to enter (e.g. legally or known illegal entrants). The outflow counts included everyone: adults, children, and non-Mexican nationals crossing the border southbound (even if they were from Central or South America), plus some US-born children who are likely to return).
US illegal population is estimated to be lower now than in 2007. But, we don't exactly have specific numbers for all of these border crossings. There was net migration in legal immigration from Mexico to the US from 2010-2014 but amounted to less than 4,000 people.
The sources are quoted right on the Pew website. They get the inflow and outflow numbers from different sources with different methodologies for counting. Read them. Remember, Pew Hispanic is an advocacy group;
". There was net migration in legal immigration from Mexico to the US from 2010-2014 but amounted to less than 4,000 people."
I think it goes deeper than that. America never really embraced the dream of a utopian socialist welfare state. The government is weak, constantly being influenced by moneyed interests and chronically underfunded.
Mistakes happen. The mature thing to do is acknowledge them and work to repair the damage. No one needs to completely reverse everything they believe in to do that.
These people are by and large the enemy and not because of a single election. Their aims are inimical to the interests of me and mine. I no longer regard them as any different than the residents of say Iran, China, or Russia. Like the russians and Iranians as human beings our interests may align and we may work towards the same ends but we are not now be fellow Americans in any meaningful sense.
Don't most polls show the split down party lines with non GOP voters having 60-80 percent disapproval and GOP voters having 75-90 percent approval.
When I listened to Trump voters on radio interviews and that Oprah interview for 60 minutes, they don't read/hear the same things I hear when I read/hear Trump's words or say we need to give him a chance to do what he promised.
Only 46% of Americans hold a passport though, so less than that have left the country, and even less than that have visited "socialist welfare states". So, in short, no.
Quite a few have visited Europe though and loved things like the quality, cost and availability of healthcare. If more US citizens could look outward at other countries than inward at divisions of their own making, things like shitty healthcare and drug policies might improve.
I'm not sure how that's relevant, especially as it seems to counter your original comment ("Maybe because Americans have seen socialist welfare states are far from a utopia?")
And no, I mean they injured themselves and experienced the healthcare system firsthand.
While technically true, it's never good to argue with election results if they are a very close call; politicians like to ("clearly a one seat majority means that the people have spoken!1"), but it is not a serious approach.
thatfrenchguy didn’t say it is. He said it will be, using makes to indicate the future. There’s no grammatical error here, just a grammatical misunderstanding.
And OK, maybe "third world country" isn't really the best term. But what it's heading toward looks a lot like mexico, for example, with a small ultra-wealthy elite, and dysfunctionality for the rest.
For it to head that way, in my experience, you need people to start being incompetent and not caring at all levels of society. A slant towards stupid bureaucracy and paperwork will help too.
The US is so, so, incredibly far from remotely getting to that level.
Nobody suggested that we'd all be dead or that the world would be over. In fact, talking about the decline of a country probably means that they expect people to be alive in that country to experience it.
Some parts seem to be borderline. States have infant mortality rates on par with Thailand, Romania and Fiji. Others have life expectancy on par with Brazil, The Lebanon and Sri Lanka. Transparency International rates the corruption index of the USA only slightly higher than Uruguay (no breakdown by state unfortunately, and still quite high overall in developed world to be fair).
Obviously America is a huge place and one size does not fit all, but there are some rural areas that wouldn't seem out of place in a third world country for sure.
The state of Texas has a poor country's maternal health outcome on average.
From 2016, and bound to be worse now as the 2017 legislative session seemed to concentrate on transgender bathroom laws/laws against urban areas having their own laws.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2016/09/10/texas-...
Definitionally, no, although that question becomes interesting for a different reason.
The first world was "countries allied with the US against the godless Commies", the second world was "the godless Commies", and the third world was "everyone else, where we fight the proxy wars between the first and second worlds, for the soul of mankind". Second world no longer really means anything since the collapse of the Soviet Union, of course, and first/third world has become a euphemism for "ok/shitty country".
By the old definitions, the US falling out of the third world becomes much more interesting.
"First World" or "Old World" meant the civilised European countries (both West and East)
"Second World" or "New World" was countries colonised by Europe, such as the USA.
"Third World" meant countries still in whatever benighted state of uncivilised savagery that they had before the Europeans enlightened them.
Yes, I'm being ironic. But these were the literal terms and attitude during my education (1970's UK). It was only vaguely recognised that the USA was properly part of the First World and not some uppity colony that was too big for its boots.
I also learned a different definition, later, in Economics:
- First World economies are based on trading information
- Second World economies are manufacturing-based
- Third World economies are resource-based
This definition causes arguments at Australian dinner parties ;)
Interesting how the terms are defined differently by different people for different reasons.
Surely something as basic as public healthcare is a requirement? If not that, what could possibly be more important? That, and the ridiculous availability of guns to the general public, mean I definitely consider the US a third world country in the colloquial sense, even if it obviously doesn't fit an dictionary definition originally from the 80's:
"Those countries not aligned with the west or the east during the Cold War."
I'd like a lot more examples. I'd also like a concise description that indicates how the changes will roll the US back to the intense pollution problems that existed 30+ years ago.
The example you reference is modifying rules put in place just a few years ago, so at best it's an obviously mediocre example.
>I'd also like a concise description that indicates how the changes will roll the US back to the intense pollution problems that existed 30+ years ago.
Why would I alter my comment to be in tune with what you want when I was responding to this:
>Exactly what environmental protection is Trump rolling back?
You said you had a lot more examples to provide, you pretended that nobody wanted them. I do. So let's have all those examples.
I asked for a concise description, I didn't ask you to modify your comment. Surely the environmental protection roll-backs will cause pollution problems (even if it's not of the scale that existed 30+ years ago). If it's too much to ask that you explain how your examples will cause meaningful environmental damage, and you don't want to provide such an elaboration, I understand.
> The Trump administration plans to try to repeal the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration’s main initiative to fight climate change by lowering emissions, according to news reports.
The Clean Power Plan is designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. CO2 emissions have climate impacts, but don't cause the dirty air like in these photos.
And in another few years, you can elect another Democrat and roll those back to where they were before he was elected and reverse this trend of your so-called nosedive into third world territory.
Keep in mind both parties have culpability if you feel like this has been going on before he got into office. One man, even in two terms, can't put this country on a path to where it would be considered a "third world country".
I think you don't realize the difference between the core mission of the EPA, and their explosive growth and new found excess. The EPA (along with the ACE) regularly does ridiculous nonsense like classifying ruts in newly tilled farmland as "wetland" and restricting land use on that basis. Their policies on endangered species encourage land owners to kill and dispose of endangered species so that they are not seen on their land(shoot, shovel, and shut up); because if they do find out, you lose access to your land without compensation. There is a lot in the current EPA mission which could be cut with no negative impact on wildlife, the quality of waterways, that of air, or that of soil.
And no, the U.S. is not a third world country in any of those ways. The U.S. is an excellent and successful country, it is the country I want to live in, especially as a dual-citizen with Canada.
Just being informative, but the during the Cold War (after WWII), the US and whomever were our allies were "first world," the USSR and her allies were the "second world," and anyone who wasn't allied with either was "third world."
Interesting etymology, but the term has definitely shifted in meaning from the original cold-war context. "Third world" is pretty much a synonym for "underdeveloped" these days.
We just export all this pollution to China. Instead of a good unionized manufacturing job with a pension paying $25/hr, the average American now scrapes by makes minimum wage working odd hours at a Starbucks with no benefits. We need massive tariffs on dirty Chinese imports so clean Made in America products can compete. Otherwise we're just subsidizing the destruction of the environment in third world countries and making income inequality in the US worse by making working class Americans poorer.
Factory people were once the heart of the labor movement. Now people on the city just can’t believe how ignorant folks in the country would vote for someone they hate so much.
As one of those living 'in a city' my disbelief stems from:
* Someone that votes against their own interests, seemingly because they're willing to believe sound bites
instead of hard facts. (Voting based on emotion rather than logic.)
* That we refuse to reform political funding.
* That corporations can have more rights/power than individuals.
* That the only real problems the working class has with 'Obamacare' is that they don't understand it and hate the name.
Though I imagine if they were offered a healthcare plan where they could see (nearly) any doctor in the area,
not have to shop for healthcare, keep their healthcare from job to job,
and didn't have to worry about medical bills showing up months later...
Yeah, I think they'd like the /features/ of a single payer system.
* That we aren't willing to have a real talk about tax reform
(based on returning to a tax structure more like in the 1950s
where the lower 90th percentile paid much less,
and those earning the most paid /far/ more
(in line with how many workers worth of income they were hoarding)).
Collectively we (the voters) all are. Too many have been easy targets. We've (as an aggregate) allowed our selves to be easily swayed and frothed in to frenzies instead of taking a solid moment to calmly and rationally reflect on the actual history of the decision makers we're electing.
Last election was, hopefully, a rock bottom. The actual choices offered were both really awful.
My biggest issue is that I don't actually see a path for getting out of this pit we're in. "Regulatory capture" has everyone involved in politics addicted to money like those addicted to pain pills and the illegal drugs they are forced to turn to after the legitimate prescriptions expire.
The USA /needs/ a real third, and fourth, and fifth party, and at least two of /those/ need to stay 'clean'.
As long as the two major parties are in collusion, offering two options only slightly different from each other, little progress is possible.
I also don't see a way out. A Trump style outsider win was I think the most unlikely event that could have possibly shown us another way, but he's turned out to be "a bit of a disappointment" to put it nicely.
The post I was responding to was singling out the viewpoint those "in the city(ies)" have against those (not like them).
You may notice that said response does NOT in any way reflect an opinion based on my own self or those I feel fall in to the general category called out in the post I was responding to; positive or negative. I was merely answering the supposition asked and providing a hopefully helpful critical perspective that might be used for self reflection and improvement.
A different reply to my post asked 'who's at fault': which allowed me to expand my opinion and observations to include the general population within the US.
Please do not mis-interpret my meaning or take my words out of their intended limited context with baiting and inflammatory replies that are not designed for a productive and stimulating discussion.
Bad example: Buffet's interest is served if the disparity in taxation is resolved or at least mitigated. The Republican voters you're talking about don't understand, either out of ignorance or stupidity, that the people they vote for literally are acting opposite to the their interests.
The effects of higher tax rates on Buffet's quality of life are entirely negligible. In the words-ish of Bill Gates: once you're eating $30 hamburgers, the extra money doesn't really do much.
> Someone that votes against their own interests, seemingly because they're willing to believe sound bites instead of hard facts. (Voting based on emotion rather than logic.)
The funny part about this is the fact if this was true, then I'm baffled they vote Republican considering the majority of the MSM is on the DNC payroll and has been for about a decade now.
The barely audible voice of the conservative right is heard mainly through Fox News and conservative talk radio. The rest of the distribution channels are all owned by Liberal slanted media.
I mean, MSNBC doesn't even hide the fact their a shill for the Democratic party anymore.
The problem with a tariff on Chinese imports is: who do you think pays the tariff? The Chinese manufacturer? The importer? American distributers? No, it's the American consumers who will have to pay for it. How does that help American manufacturers to compete? They still have much higher costs than their Chinese competitors, so they'll be outmatched on R&D, marketing, variety, etc.
Besides, the American consumers probably can't afford the higher prices anyway, so rather than helping American manufacturers, tariffs will just collapse the market when consumers stop buying the products, or they go to underground sources.
To level the playing field, we can't do it on the market-price side. We have to do it on the manufacturing-cost side. The US has all of these regulations that protect the environment and protect workers, but the costs have been borne by each manufacturer separately. I think that's led to a great deal of redundancy and inefficiency, which has raised the cost of these protections beyond what most manufacturers could bear. We need to move to a system where these costs are shared by all Americans, and by all who buy American products, in a more efficient manner. That should reduce labor costs, hopefully enough so that the benefits of local manufacturing outweight the still-higher labor cost to provide an American-level standard of living.
Well if you impose tariffs on those imported goods, and you still need to buy said goods, you just pay more but that money spent goes to pay an American worker or in the worst case an a American factory owner paying taxes. We don’t pay the true cost of items now because of this off-shoring to China. But if you create a tariff such that it’s economically feasible to manufacture goods in the United States, wages will have to increase to continue growth and spending, and the environment will continue to improve. Ultimately it stands on the same principles that buy local does. The not local your purchases are - the more the wealth stays in the loca area - we just abstract that to the national level.
> No, it's the American consumers who will have to pay for it.
The theory (right or wrong is debatable) is that some percentage of consumers will use this price increase to let their decision to buy domestic be influenced.
A tariff on Chinese imports would be a direct hit to growth. It’s not going to force companies to manufacture here. It’s only going to hold the US back. It’s like saying we’d better off closing all of borders. The US produces lots, but it would hardly get by in isolation. Not to mention that waning from the national stage bequeathes power to the next in line.
> They still have much higher costs than their Chinese competitors, so they'll be outmatched on R&D, marketing, variety, etc.
That's incorrect. It's essentially as expensive at this point to manufacture in China as it is in the US, for everything except the most basic of labor-intensive manufacturing (particularly in industries where China's lax environmental and labor protection rules are beneficial). Which is why China's manufacturing industry is barely growing. Companies that would have chosen China as an obvious, easy solution for decades, are now choosing Vietnam, Mexico, Pakistan, et al. It's enough that it has robbed China of nearly all manufacturing expansion.
2015: "U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s"
Substitue "China" for any other country where manufacturing is cheap and my argument stands. You've highlighted another problem with the tariff idea: if it targets one country, manufacturing will shift to another cheap country rather than coming back to the US, and the tariffs would have to apply to more and more of them until we've been completely isolated in a global trade war.
That sounds a lot like the federal sugar program - it was designed to restrict the imports of much cheaper sugar from other countries to help American sugar companies from going out of business. The artificially high domestic prices just end up moving candy companies out of the country - because it's hard for them to compete on price with candy companies that can buy cheaper sugar outside of the US.
Meanwhile, the federal gov buys about $300 million in excess sugar every time prices drop below a certain level due to other regulations. It's a strange system.
Psst, you’re going against the globalist narrative. On HN this is punishable by downvoting. To atone for your sins, write “protectionism is bad” a hundred times on the nearest chalkboard.
Yup. I tell people all the time, "See that pollution in Beijing. That's why the air in the USA is cleaner." As if their air doesn't become our air.
People are naive. They believe China is all about lower wages. It's mostly about the byproduct of the manufacturing. That is, pollution. At the risk of editorializing, even the pro-green "liberals" don't understand what it takes to make their new iPhone.
Apple fully understands what it takes to make their new iPhone. They're going out of their way to source conflict-free materials, to ensure that it's only made with recyclable components, and to eliminate as many unnecessary toxic components from the manufacturing process, like lead and mercury. Apple doesn't mind absorbing these extra costs especially because there's enough margin in their products they can afford to.
If you want to blame someone, don't blame Apple. Blame the lawnmower company that used to manufacture their products domestically but decided to out-source it to China for no reason other than slashing costs. They're the ones that keep putting the squeeze on their suppliers to trim costs, to use plastic parts instead of metal, to skimp on anything and everything they think they can get away with.
Where Apple is doing checks on their suppliers to make sure they're not employing child labour, that they're not endangering their employees with overly long work weeks, other companies are out there demanding they work harder, longer, and cheaper.
When China is no longer the cheapest shop in town they'll pack their bags and move on to the next place, and the next place, in their suicidal race to the bottom.
What's ironic here is that China is actually one of the biggest green energy proponents. They used coal to get their industrial base going, but solar and wind will be the big drivers behind the next push. While the US might have better environmental regulations, lately it's developed a severe allergy to "new things". Meanwhile China keeps deploying bigger and bigger solar installations: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/china-launches-lar...
I don't see China's embracing of green as ironic. They see the future. They understand where the need of the market it going. Most importantly, they understand oil's day is over. They'd rather shift to green than waste recources on wars for oil. China isn't stuck in the (at best) 20th century (in this regard).
No doubt China is interested in power and influence. They difference is they'd prefer to conquer economically rather than with military force. So far, that's working quite well for them.
I mean "ironic" in the sense that the country everyone likes to paint as the most reckless polluter and constant scourge in any and all departments of humanity is now the leading green proponent. Meanwhile the US, home of the EPA, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and a host of other things that simply don't exist in China, is now mutating into a monster that's looking for ways to use more coal, to blow up more mountains, to slash any and all regulations.
> They difference is they'd prefer to conquer economically rather than with military force.
This is what Japan did post World War II and for the most part it worked out pretty well. Not a shot fired, and yet culturally and economically they're right up there with every G8 country. Japanese televisions showing Japanese cartoons all across the world.
In constrast, Russia, a country that's larger, more populated, and in a unique position to bridge Asia and Europe, is an irrelevant backwater country. Nobody in their right mind would want to own a Russian television or watch Russian shows unless they're Russian in the first place. It's a shame because Russia could have turned into something amazing instead of the place it is today.
Sadly the United States seems to be heading in the Russia direction while China is heading in the Japan direction.
"It's a shame because Russia could have turned into something amazing instead of the place it is today."
Today? Yes. But also, what's your measurement for amazing? Based on the current state of the world, and the direction things are trending, I don't see any country that deserves the crown of amazing. What am I missing?
Things have gotten a bit sideways lately, it's true, but if you look at what some European countries are doing to prevent their post-industrial economies from collapsing into chaos, to shield against climate change, to become more self-sufficient in terms of food, it is pretty amazing.
What countries like China have done in the last twenty years is also amazing. I'm not saying it's without problems, or that this progress is always worthwhile, but you've got to admit the dramatic transformation from backwater third world country to major industrial power in the span of a single generation is pretty amazing.
There's other examples like that, but they're mostly historical, like Iceland clawing its way out of being an impoverished country entirely dependent on scraping out a meagre existence fishing to a vibrant part of Europe both culturally and economically.
Does Apple understand? Yes, they do. I would sure hope so. On the other hand, my original comment was about consumers. You know, they type of people who post memes touting Obama and the low price of gasoline. They clearly don't understand lower prices increases consumption. Increased consumption increases pollution (aka greenhouse gases). How is that green?
Those Pensions and Wages were not sustainable. The Average American is not working at Star Bucks parttime.
Even if things are made in America and cleanly they'll be made by machines, not meat. And crushed under not only 'Clean' regulations but Safety and other Quality standards that will drive prices of goods up. Not everyone will be able to secure these new Manufacturing jobs you want. So how will your person still stuck at Starbucks be able to afford them?
Because the US had around 55% of all global manufacturing circa 1970 (with 130 million fewer people), due to its temporary quasi economic monopoly status after WW2 as the last highly developed industrial economy left standing.
That's why real US wages, stand-alone, have barely climbed in 40 years. Consider for a moment just how extremely high those wages were in ~1970, that it took decades for other high development nations to catch up.
That and the fact that healthcare costs over that time have soared in the US, so a big part of US compensation increases since 1970, have gone to employee health insurance costs (commonly anywhere from 10% to 30% of a person's compensation if you're near or above the median).
Bullshit. Utter bullshit. Productivity has continued to rise since the 1970s and yet wages are pretty much flat. That is: People are producing more value for their employers than ever before, but aren't being paid accordingly.
These wages are only "not sustainable" if you think corporations are entitled to cut costs, squeeze employees, and slash benefits all in the name of squeaking out ever increasing returns for shareholders or to pad out their own exorbinant executive salaries.
If anything's not sustainable it's current executive pay levels.
>(...) if you think corporations are entitled to cut costs, squeeze employees, and slash benefits all in the name of squeaking out ever increasing returns for shareholders or to pad out their own exorbinant executive salaries.
That's literally the reason most corporations exist, so yes they are entitled to do exactly that, to whatever degree the law and market allows.
The reason corporations exist is to protect investors, not make them rich. A "limited liability corporation" made it advantageous for people to take more risks than they usually would by giving them a guarantee they wouldn't lose everything they own if the venture failed. That isn't possible in a partnership or sole-proprietorship. In those if your idea tanks, you go down with the ship.
The type of thinking you're espousing is the sort that bubbled to the surface in the 1980s where profit drove all decisions. No longer was there concern for the welfare of workers, for the long-term survival of the company, or anything, absolutely anything at all, other than making shareholders happy.
Companies never succeed by simply making profits. They succeed by making good products. Then they're acquired by hedge funds that squeeze them for every ounce of profit they're good for and sell the remaining husk for pennies on the dollar.
Cut the pay of the few Executives and divide it among all the other 100's of employees. Will that bring the employees wages up to the right levels?
It's not necessarily the People but the machines/equipment they operate that are generating the 'more value' you speak of. The employees do not pay for this equipment and its maintenance. The Company does.
While it used to take 3 men 30 minutes to make a batch of ingredients with shovels and wheelbarrows, it now takes 1 Operator 30 seconds to push a button on an automated transfer system and watch it work. That one Operator is now producing 'more value' than his 3 predecessors. The lone Operator can now make 10 more batches a shift than 3 could before. Should he be paid accordingly for pushing a button versus the hard labor of 3 men?
I think the fact it's happening/has happened is 'bullshit' and that it's not 'right'. But the heavily automated jobs we have today aren't the same hard manual labor ones of the past. Large North American Manufacturers have to 'cut costs' to compete with offshore production, stay within strict Gov't Regulations, and survive(thus keeping jobs).
People at Starbucks don't make minimum wage, and they have good benefits.
And yes, free trade tends to make countries more equal in terms of wealth, but it tends to make wealth inequality greater within countries. Personally I'd like to see the introduction of small across-the-board tariffs on imports even with the recognition long term growth will be lower.
> the average American now scrapes by makes minimum wage working odd hours at a Starbucks with no benefits
The average American has adequate health benefits [1] and makes around $25/hr [2,3].
> We just export all this pollution to China.
We sure do.
> Instead of a good unionized manufacturing job
But I question the assertion that without China we would still have strong unionized manufacturing labor. In fact, globalization was just one component of an ultimately successful, century-long coordinated attack on unionized labor.
[1] About 100 million Americans have no or inadequate healthcare, which is of course inexcusable but still means the "average" American does have healthcare. And this being the USA, that healthcare is likely tied to employment.
The "median" here samples 16-year-olds in high school, retired people, stay-at-home parents, voluntarily part-time workers, and many others who we would expect to have little or no income.
Among full-time workers, as reported by the BLS, median income was about $45,000.
I object to exporting it to China because because it drifts over the Pacific back to the West Coast.
So what we got is the worst of both worlds, losing manufacturing jobs and getting the pollution resulting from a country that didn't care about the cost in pollution.
A fair amount, though not all, of that pollution does settle out or become oxidized over the intervening 8,000 miles or so. Though yes, measurable quantities do cross the Pacific.
Some pollution, sure, but not all. One of the top causes of pollution and global warming is from meat production.And it's cheaper for multi-national companies from China to import pork from the US rather than slaughter them at home: https://qz.com/433750/the-world-eats-cheap-bacon-at-the-expe...
"It begs questions about the quality of life the world’s richest nation will tolerate for its poorer citizens, questions that have been thrown into sharp relief by the recent entry into North Carolina of China’s—indeed the world’s—largest pork processor, WH Group. Drawn by the low cost of production there, WH Group finds it cheaper to raise pigs in North Carolina and export them to tables back home than to raise the animals in China. "
> Instead of a good unionized manufacturing job with a pension paying $25/hr, the average American now scrapes by makes minimum wage working odd hours at a Starbucks with no benefits.
That's blatantly false. The US has one of the highest median and median disposable income levels. The median US household income, at near $60,000 is also among the highest on the planet.
Median weekly earnings for a full-time job in the US, is about $860. Or over $40,000 per year. The number of major economies you can list that are at or near that level is very short: Australia, Switzerland, Norway, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium.
The US's high living standard is due to all the cheap crap it can import. You can't just slap super-high tariffs on China, because the manufacturing will just move elsewhere. You'd have to slap tariffs on almost all the high-population countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Such a hostile trade environment would rebound on the US, and it'd suffer more.
The problem isn't really that the manufacturing jobs have been given to the cheap countries, it's that the US is okay with the top quintile grabbing all the money for themselves (probably because 'freedom')
Pittsburgher here. My favorite building in the world is the Cathedral of Learning, a breathtaking 42-story Gothic Revival building at the heart of the University of Pittsburgh. It stood through Pittsburgh's industrial zenith, back when the air was so choked with soot that the streetlights burned all day and housewives swept the settled ash from their front porches every evening. You can imagine how that atmosphere took its toll on the building itself, staining the white limestone in great streaks of black and brown. A few years back they finally cleaned it; had to, apparently, as the clinging soot was eating away at the stone itself. It doubtlessly looks far prettier now, but I'm saddened at such a visible loss of the warning that my city's history represents, especially since humans seem to be so eager to repeat the past.
Fellow Pittsburgher. The evidence is all around the city. Odd as it may seem, the soot-covered buildings are actually kind of beautiful in their own way. It marks the passage of time and the city's own evolution, which wasn't exactly a sure thing when the steel mills first started to close. But it has to be cleaned eventually lest we eventually lose the building facades instead.
A few years back, I was walking past a church downtown that was in the middle of being cleaned. The difference between the side that had been pressure-washed, and what remained to be done, was striking. Far more than just seeing the finished product. You look at something like that, realize that people lived and breathed it in daily for years, and you're almost surprised that anyone survived long enough to clean up the city's air in the first place.
The Cathedral of Learning is such a beautiful building. I wonder though: did they leave any dirty patches as a small reminder? When they cleaned the ceiling of the great hall of Grand Central Terminal of the tobacco stains and train soot, a small patch was left dirty to show how filthy it was before the restoration [1]. As a kid, seeing that patch was a powerful argument to never smoke tobacco.
Northwestern University's Med school removed the soot from its facade about 5 years ago. Chicago got to see the same thing. I had no idea the building was supposed to be white!
On the Carnegie Library, they left a corner deliberately un-cleaned to show the old Pittsburgh look. Not visible from Forbes Ave, you have to walk toward the library entrance past the mascot dinosaur.
Rumors of EPA decline are greatly exaggerated. Tier IV emissions standards are here to stay. Fuel economy rules are here to stay. Airborne dust standards haven't been relaxed. Criminal offenses for illegal dumping are still intact. The United States isn't returning the 1970's and claims to the contrary are political propaganda.
How can you say definitively that things won't change? I'm genuinely asking - I don't know the specifics of what the head of the EPA can and cannot do to change existing laws (nor do I know all the specifics of which laws the president can change).
There's already been change and there will be more. Climate change regulations in particular have been rolled back. The real questions are: (a) will Pruitt roll back regulations that do more social harm (think decent paying jobs and investment) than good (think public health); and (b) does a four year rollback before a likely change in Presidents even matter?
You're buying into a false narrative. There are many thousands of regulations. They don't all make sense. They're not all necessary. And, some that do make sense and that are necessary may get rolled back... for 4 years until the next administration comes in.
What about when the Trump administration hussles to de-National Monumentize public lands and start the brutal extraction they're looking to do on say Escalante or Bear Ears? You can't roll environmental damage back, necessarily.
No just pointing out you are creating a false narrative.
>There are many thousands of regulations. They don't all make sense. They're not all necessary.
"Soooo many regulations, we couldn't possibly need all of these. Ignore the specific few discussed here lets make it about allllll these redundant regulations."
It's difficult to have these conversations when people are constantly terrified of "what trump wants" instead of what he is actually capable of. I'm amazed at how much power people think the president has.
The President plus Congress plus the Supreme Court has all the power, though. The first two would love to roll back pollution controls, and the last one is teetering. The main thing preventing it right now is that the ruling party has forgotten how to rule.
The President has power over things affected by his executive privilege. Like the State department, for instance, which has experienced massive hemorrhaging of personnel, is barely staffed, and is ensuring that the US has less than the bare minimum of institutional knowledge and capacity to maintain its (good or bad) hegemony over the world's affairs. This could have momentous long term effects.
We ban accounts that use HN primarily for ideological battle. Since you've been doing that, and repeatedly posting uncivilly to boot, I've banned this one.
You assume they'll lose in 2020. It could very well be 8 years (or 12).
No one thought GWB would be a 2-term president. No one thought Trump was electable.
Thinking the assault on the EPA will suddenly be reversed next election - that's fantasy thinking.
Fact is, the government should be meaningfully increasing our regulation of emissions and pollution (in terms of costs) or some will cause irreversible results in the global ecology (coral reefs, ocean acidification, carbon levels, global temperature). Not moving forward means we lose ground.
> will cause irreversible results in the global ecology
We (as in homo sapiens) moved beyond that point years ago. Everything we can do now is attempt to reduce global permanent damage, not avoid it. Also, these attempts are not successful at this time.
> No one thought GWB would be a 2-term president. No one thought Trump was electable.
That's nowhere close to the truth. Tens of millions of voters did; and likely tens of millions of more non-voting people thought so as well. Michael Moore thought Trump was going to win, because of how he was connecting as an anti-establishment candidate and Hillary was strictly representing the old establishment - in an anti-establishment election. Plenty of right-wing media outlets provided sound reasoning for why Trump would or could win.
George W. Bush was a double war President, who was still knee-deep into those wars in the run-up to the 2004 election, and a mere few years post 9/11. The Democrats ran two weak politicians at him. The second one vs Kerry, given the broader war/political context, was an obvious outcome.
Sure, but what other President has favored basic income schemes?
And sure, Nixon hated blacks and hippies. And Mexicans. And the War on Drugs has indeed been a disaster. But, I gotta ask, what President since has backed off substantially on the War on Drugs? Not Carter, as I recall. Or Reagan or Bush Sr. Or even Clinton. And for sure, not Bush Jr. Maybe Obama, to the extent of relaxing federal enforcement re marijuana in states that had legalized.
> Sure, but what other President has favored basic income schemes?
I thought FDR came close.
I was trying to find evidence of this but most google searches along these lines yield something called the Roosevelt Institute advocating UBI quite recently. I thought I did see a video of him advocating it in a speech.
Regarding the broader topic of Nixon and policies that are now considered left wing, ignoring for a moment that the country has shifted very far economically rightwards starting around the Reagan years, regarding things like the EPA, the way I always heard it from people of age in the Nixon years was that he was rather forced into some of these things by the way the will of the public was shifting.
Yes, FDR. But some say that he was forced into that by the Great Depression, and that otherwise there would have been a revolution. In 1932, there had been a huge WWI veterans encampment in DC. They finally got their money in 1936, in FDR's first term.
And yes, Nixon was perhaps forced into it too. But actually, I mentioned that as evidence for the rightward shift since then.
With the help of Richard Andrews, professor emeritus of environmental policy at UNC Chapel Hill, and William Ruckelshaus, EPA administrator under presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, Brooke considers the tumultuous history of the EPA, its evolving relationship with the public, and its uncertain future.
I grew up right where the photo for Cleveland was taken. It was still dirty in the early 80s, but so much better than even 10 years before that. I can't imagine rolling back to the 60s. Then again, the steel industry is probably never coming back to Cleveland.
Yup. I was brought into this world almost sixty years ago and spent my youth moving around as the military commanded my father to do.
As such, I got to see the horrible way we treated the planet and can remember the differences in both results and behavior.
It was not even remotely uncommon to just throw your trash out the car window. I don't mean a cigarette butt, but whole waste from a fast food meal, diapers, and any other refuse was simply thrown out of the window.
The national parks were even full of trash. You'd go into the park and the drive in was littered with the refuse from years of campers and visitors. It wasn't hidden, but right there in the open.
The bit about don't mess with Texas was actually a campaign to clean up Texas and stop the littering. The highways were littered more than one might expect at the enterences of today's landfills.
The rivers were polluted beyond what some seem to imagine today - and this was not that long ago. For a while, it was even considered sound science that the solution to pollution is dilution. Technically, that's probably sound theory but there is a finite amount of dilution to be had.
We've come a long ways and there are still things to complain about. However, we can now eat the fish from the rivers and probably not die. Probably...
I still have a hard time hearing people complain about environmental regulations, when articles like this post say things like "The river caught fire a number of times". When your river is catching fire, surely that's a sign that perhaps some controls should be put in place?
I try to be understanding and say that I don't know if all regulation is beneficial. I have no problem with regulations being changed to reflect new information. I don't feel qualified to opine about specific regulations but I am not arbitrarily opposed to examining existing regulations.
Laws should change with the times and I don't know enough about the specifics to unilaterally condemn efforts to examine the status quo.
The part that I don’t understand is that just about everyone involved with the current administration, as well as many of those who voted for it, are old enough to remember. I’m certainly old enough to remember a smoggy L. A., a dead Lake Erie with rotting, dead fish on the shore, and companies that just dumped their toxic shit wherever they liked. The pictures just don’t it justice, especially that it was just everywhere you went in comparison today.
And yet despite being old enough to remember, those responsible for current policy, and those that vote for them, want to return to those times. I just...don’t...get it.
>Have you heard any advocacy for say, removing catalytic converters from cars?
Yes. Spend time around car culture and you’ll see there are tons of people who advocate for the removal of catalytic converters and a drastic reduction in emission (and safety) standards. There are people proud to roll coal.
Also “states’ rights” arguments are almost always code for something else. The SR argument is never about the finer points of federalism.
It's not just the current administration. One of the first things the Bush administration did was to allow more arsenic in drinking water[1]:
> EPA Administrator Christie Whitman on Tuesday rescinded a Clinton administration decision that would have significantly reduced the amount of arsenic allowed in the nation's drinking water.
I'll take it a step further and wonder why the whole world isn't on board with the idea of protecting what we have? It makes me very sad that we don't treat our planet with respect.
If you don't care about LA or Lake Erie, you are able to profit from things that negatively impact them, and you don't care about what happens to the world after you are dead, then it makes perfect sense
"those responsible for current policy, and those that vote for them, want to return to those times."
I bet those responsible all have big, nice houses in beautiful places where factories and mines and far far away and big coal/gas/oil companies help them to keep it this way. Those who vote for such policies are desperate (or stupid) enough to believe that this "will bring back jobs".
Why environment pollution is not solved with suing polluters by those, whose property is affected? E.g. I don't understand why anyone can drive an internal combustion car and pollute the air of residents.
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[ 7.3 ms ] story [ 361 ms ] threadhttps://www.cbsnews.com/news/epa-high-toxic-metal-levels-in-...
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/elr/vol28_2/mcgarit...
I mean, do you guys ever actually follow the end result of your logic? If the USA was as tyrannical as you think, you'd have to be completely insane to stay. Why do you have a death wish? GET OUT! RUN! They're coming for you! Before they read your e-mails and put your family in jail!
Oh wait, that's insane. If the USA was as bad as you guys here think, then you wouldn't be so unabashedly criticizing the state. You'd be in jail, or terrified to speak up. Take a trip to China and see how far criticism of the state gets you.
And further, are you REALLY suggesting that EVERY immigrant to the USA is too stupid or too uninformed to understand the state of our government?
Has nobody here ever talked to someone who lived under a real tyrannical state? Or even... God forbid... googled for a video of an interview with one?
Don't worry though. I'm sure this comment will be downvoted into oblivion to protect people's absurd notion that they're under constant threat. It's okay to believe the sky is falling, but it's not okay to suggest people's wild speculation and phobia might be just that... an irrational phobia. In four years, if Trump is voted out of the office, people will entirely forget all their panic and doom-and-gloom and move on to the next moral outrage. They won't sit there and think "Hmm, maybe I was wrong." They'll just move on to the next threat. They're addicted to fear.
I wanted to leave the US during the Bush administration. It’s not easy to do. I would have to gain work in a foreign land in which I possessed valued trade skills, adapt to cultural changes, and build a new network in place of existing ties both socially and professionally. I might have give up my pets, acquire new furniture and amenities, and restart my career from a lower tier. I might have to consider regions with harsher climates than I would prefer. I might not be able to relocate with my spouse if she doesn’t want to, or can’t, do the same.
In addition to all of this, there are actually only a handful of countries that would appeal to me (in terms of government and rights afforded to the people). I certainly wouldn't endure all of the above for a system that I found equally corrupt or with fewer protections for its citizens.
> Don't worry though. I'm sure this comment will be downvoted into oblivion to protect people's absurd notion that they're under constant threat.
Condescension does not bolster your arguments.
Isn't the alternative a totalitarian banana republic in your view? Shouldn't these be minor inconveniences in comparison? Syrian refugees have similar concerns when they choose to leave after all, yet they seem to wish to leave and the American left chooses to stay. What is different if not the conditions of the country?
It depends on your starting point. If you go back to pre-cold war, they certainly are not. If you go back to the turn of the century, we have even fewer rights. If you go back to the early 1800s, we have even fewer.
>Has nobody here ever talked to someone who lived under a real tyrannical state? Or even... God forbid... googled for a video of an interview with one?
I think that's a pretty low bar.
About 13% of the world's adults -- or about 630 million people -- say they would like to leave their country and move somewhere else permanently. For roughly 138 million people, that somewhere else would be the U.S. -- the No. 1 desired destination for potential migrants.
The U.K. is a distant second at ~40M.[1]
[1]http://news.gallup.com/poll/161435/100-million-worldwide-dre...
Who would have thought.
78% of people who want to move, want to move somewhere other than the USA.
Australia has a population of 24.6 million and that table[1] says 26 million people want to move there. That's 105%.
Where as the USA has a population of 325 million but only 138 million want to move there. That's only 42%.
If Australia had the population of the USA the number should be 341 million, all else being equal.
1. http://news.gallup.com/poll/161435/100-million-worldwide-dre...
https://cis.org/Historical-Overview-Immigration-Policy
https://www.uscis.gov/history-and-genealogy/our-history/agen...
https://fairus.org/legislation/reports-and-analysis/history-...
Is that counting only lawful immigration and how many of those where undocumented workers moving back and how many are counted that were legally forced to return to their country?
It's actually not easy to get permanent resident visas in Mexico, which makes me think there is something amiss. They also really, really don't like immigration violations in Mexico.
I'd be very interested in seeing the sources for this statistic.
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-...
Apparently it's still happening:
https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-01-18/more-mexicans-are-cro...
Undocumented workers going home or being forced to go home really isn't indicative of any great trend. When American citizens are moving to Mexico at a greater rate than those coming here, that'd be significant.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/world/americas/for-migrant...
...leading to a historic milestone: more Americans have been added to the population of Mexico over the past few years than Mexicans have been added to the population of the United States, according to government data in both nations.
The numbers in the article don't line up, or it isn't clear.
Americans now make up more than three-quarters of Mexico’s roughly one million documented foreigners
Indicates ~750K, then goes on to state
the number of Americans legally living and working in Mexico grew to more than 70,000 in 2012
I'm also not sure how 750,000 'grew to more than 70,000.'
Let's be honest, really. America has lots of faults but people are still dying to get here and we absolutely don't have a problem getting more people to move here or with retaining local talent. There are about 12,000,000 documented Mexicans living or working in the US.
There are two reasons that occurred. First, the US saw an extremely large immigration wave [1] from Mexico over three decades. The US effectively absorbed 10% of Mexico's entire population. Such vast immigration waves never happen without an eventual return flow. Second, combined with an improved Mexico economy, family reunification became a substantial consideration for immigrants. [2]
[1] https://i.imgur.com/tzDCkOU.png
[2] http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-...
The inflow counts included only adult Mexican nationals known to enter (e.g. legally or known illegal entrants). The outflow counts included everyone: adults, children, and non-Mexican nationals crossing the border southbound (even if they were from Central or South America), plus some US-born children who are likely to return).
US illegal population is estimated to be lower now than in 2007. But, we don't exactly have specific numbers for all of these border crossings. There was net migration in legal immigration from Mexico to the US from 2010-2014 but amounted to less than 4,000 people.
". There was net migration in legal immigration from Mexico to the US from 2010-2014 but amounted to less than 4,000 people."
Source? And methodology?
I think it goes deeper than that. America never really embraced the dream of a utopian socialist welfare state. The government is weak, constantly being influenced by moneyed interests and chronically underfunded.
Mistakes happen. The mature thing to do is acknowledge them and work to repair the damage. No one needs to completely reverse everything they believe in to do that.
To them, they feel like they have corrected the mistake of the last president.
Based on that number, I'd say not that many regret it at all.
That's closer to 38%.
When I listened to Trump voters on radio interviews and that Oprah interview for 60 minutes, they don't read/hear the same things I hear when I read/hear Trump's words or say we need to give him a chance to do what he promised.
Maybe because Americans have seen socialist welfare states are far from a utopia?
Quite a few have visited Europe though and loved things like the quality, cost and availability of healthcare. If more US citizens could look outward at other countries than inward at divisions of their own making, things like shitty healthcare and drug policies might improve.
Let's not kid ourselves here. Spending a weekend at Fisherman's Warf isn't going to give you much a perspective of living in San Francisco.
And no, I mean they injured themselves and experienced the healthcare system firsthand.
And OK, maybe "third world country" isn't really the best term. But what it's heading toward looks a lot like mexico, for example, with a small ultra-wealthy elite, and dysfunctionality for the rest.
The US is so, so, incredibly far from remotely getting to that level.
If the world is over, why are you still showing up to work?
Obviously America is a huge place and one size does not fit all, but there are some rural areas that wouldn't seem out of place in a third world country for sure.
The reason for this is we are more liberal in what we define as an infant as compared to a fetus.
The first world was "countries allied with the US against the godless Commies", the second world was "the godless Commies", and the third world was "everyone else, where we fight the proxy wars between the first and second worlds, for the soul of mankind". Second world no longer really means anything since the collapse of the Soviet Union, of course, and first/third world has become a euphemism for "ok/shitty country".
By the old definitions, the US falling out of the third world becomes much more interesting.
"First World" or "Old World" meant the civilised European countries (both West and East)
"Second World" or "New World" was countries colonised by Europe, such as the USA.
"Third World" meant countries still in whatever benighted state of uncivilised savagery that they had before the Europeans enlightened them.
Yes, I'm being ironic. But these were the literal terms and attitude during my education (1970's UK). It was only vaguely recognised that the USA was properly part of the First World and not some uppity colony that was too big for its boots.
I also learned a different definition, later, in Economics:
- First World economies are based on trading information
- Second World economies are manufacturing-based
- Third World economies are resource-based
This definition causes arguments at Australian dinner parties ;)
Interesting how the terms are defined differently by different people for different reasons.
"Those countries not aligned with the west or the east during the Cold War."
Would you like more?
edit: No? One example was enough? But I had so much more. :(
The example you reference is modifying rules put in place just a few years ago, so at best it's an obviously mediocre example.
Why would I alter my comment to be in tune with what you want when I was responding to this:
>Exactly what environmental protection is Trump rolling back?
I asked for a concise description, I didn't ask you to modify your comment. Surely the environmental protection roll-backs will cause pollution problems (even if it's not of the scale that existed 30+ years ago). If it's too much to ask that you explain how your examples will cause meaningful environmental damage, and you don't want to provide such an elaboration, I understand.
Who was I commenting to? You or the user whose post my comment showed up under?
> So let's have all those examples
But that is not what you asked for. Try again, smarter not harder.
The first line of the article.
Most people use the term "roll back" to refer to a reversal of something that was actually put into effect.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/05/climate/trump...
The article also has concise descriptions of each change.
Here are a few (without the concise descriptions):
(Overturned) 3. Lifted a freeze on new coal leases on public lands
4. Canceled a requirement for oil and gas companies to report methane emissions
5. Revoked a rule that prevented coal companies from dumping mining debris into local streams
12. Repealed an Obama-era rule regulating royalties for oil, gas and coal
13. Withdrew guidance for federal agencies to include greenhouse gas emissions in environmental reviews
14. Relaxed the environmental review process for federal infrastructure projects
15. Announced intent to stop payments to the Green Climate Fund
22. Revoked directive for federal agencies to mitigate the environmental impacts of projects they approve
23. Directed agencies to stop using an Obama-era calculation of the “social cost of carbon”
(In progress) 26. Proposed repeal and replacement of the Clean Power Plan
27. Announced intent to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement
28. Proposed rescinding a rule that protected tributaries and wetlands under the Clean Water Act
29. Reopened a review of fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks
32. Reviewing limits on toxic discharge from power plants into public waterways
33. Reviewing rules regulating coal ash waste from power plants
34. Reviewing emissions standards for new, modified and reconstructed power plants
35. Reviewing emissions rules for power plant start-ups, shutdowns and malfunctions
37. Announced plans to rescind water pollution regulations for fracking on federal and Indian lands
(In limbo) 45. Reviewing a rule limiting methane emissions at new oil and gas drilling sites
46. Put on hold rules aimed at cutting methane emissions from landfills
47. Proposed delay of rule limiting methane emissions on public lands
48. Delayed a lawsuit over a rule regulating airborne mercury emissions from power plants
51. Delayed compliance dates for federal building efficiency standards
(Changes reinstated after legal challenges) 1. Delayed by one year a compliance deadline for new ozone pollution standards, but later reversed course
2. Delayed publishing efficiency standards for household appliances
3. Reinstated rule limiting the discharge of mercury by dental offices into municipal sewers
Keep in mind both parties have culpability if you feel like this has been going on before he got into office. One man, even in two terms, can't put this country on a path to where it would be considered a "third world country".
It's kind the cool thing about our country.
And no, the U.S. is not a third world country in any of those ways. The U.S. is an excellent and successful country, it is the country I want to live in, especially as a dual-citizen with Canada.
http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/third_world_countries....
The spheres of influence don't really apply anymore, but that's the source of the term.
Last election was, hopefully, a rock bottom. The actual choices offered were both really awful.
My biggest issue is that I don't actually see a path for getting out of this pit we're in. "Regulatory capture" has everyone involved in politics addicted to money like those addicted to pain pills and the illegal drugs they are forced to turn to after the legitimate prescriptions expire.
The USA /needs/ a real third, and fourth, and fifth party, and at least two of /those/ need to stay 'clean'.
I also don't see a way out. A Trump style outsider win was I think the most unlikely event that could have possibly shown us another way, but he's turned out to be "a bit of a disappointment" to put it nicely.
Warren Buffet believes tax rates should be higher. Is that not against his own interests? Very few people will call him out as dumb or misguided.
You may notice that said response does NOT in any way reflect an opinion based on my own self or those I feel fall in to the general category called out in the post I was responding to; positive or negative. I was merely answering the supposition asked and providing a hopefully helpful critical perspective that might be used for self reflection and improvement.
A different reply to my post asked 'who's at fault': which allowed me to expand my opinion and observations to include the general population within the US.
Please do not mis-interpret my meaning or take my words out of their intended limited context with baiting and inflammatory replies that are not designed for a productive and stimulating discussion.
The effects of higher tax rates on Buffet's quality of life are entirely negligible. In the words-ish of Bill Gates: once you're eating $30 hamburgers, the extra money doesn't really do much.
The funny part about this is the fact if this was true, then I'm baffled they vote Republican considering the majority of the MSM is on the DNC payroll and has been for about a decade now.
The barely audible voice of the conservative right is heard mainly through Fox News and conservative talk radio. The rest of the distribution channels are all owned by Liberal slanted media.
I mean, MSNBC doesn't even hide the fact their a shill for the Democratic party anymore.
Besides, the American consumers probably can't afford the higher prices anyway, so rather than helping American manufacturers, tariffs will just collapse the market when consumers stop buying the products, or they go to underground sources.
To level the playing field, we can't do it on the market-price side. We have to do it on the manufacturing-cost side. The US has all of these regulations that protect the environment and protect workers, but the costs have been borne by each manufacturer separately. I think that's led to a great deal of redundancy and inefficiency, which has raised the cost of these protections beyond what most manufacturers could bear. We need to move to a system where these costs are shared by all Americans, and by all who buy American products, in a more efficient manner. That should reduce labor costs, hopefully enough so that the benefits of local manufacturing outweight the still-higher labor cost to provide an American-level standard of living.
The theory (right or wrong is debatable) is that some percentage of consumers will use this price increase to let their decision to buy domestic be influenced.
And also perhaps in addition, because their company cannot pay them anymore because of the cost of goods.
That's incorrect. It's essentially as expensive at this point to manufacture in China as it is in the US, for everything except the most basic of labor-intensive manufacturing (particularly in industries where China's lax environmental and labor protection rules are beneficial). Which is why China's manufacturing industry is barely growing. Companies that would have chosen China as an obvious, easy solution for decades, are now choosing Vietnam, Mexico, Pakistan, et al. It's enough that it has robbed China of nearly all manufacturing expansion.
2015: "U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s"
http://fortune.com/2015/06/26/fracking-manufacturing-costs/
2016: "These days, China's labor costs are only 4% cheaper than those in the U.S. when productivity is factored in, according to Oxford Economics."
http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/17/news/economy/china-cheap-lab...
If not, maybe there are other costs associated too? Or the "supply chain" simply works best if placed in China?
Or, as we've suspected already, it's just political posturing? And the good old lack of political will to spend on retraining coal miners and others?
Meanwhile, the federal gov buys about $300 million in excess sugar every time prices drop below a certain level due to other regulations. It's a strange system.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/us/american-candy-makers-p...
People are naive. They believe China is all about lower wages. It's mostly about the byproduct of the manufacturing. That is, pollution. At the risk of editorializing, even the pro-green "liberals" don't understand what it takes to make their new iPhone.
If you want to blame someone, don't blame Apple. Blame the lawnmower company that used to manufacture their products domestically but decided to out-source it to China for no reason other than slashing costs. They're the ones that keep putting the squeeze on their suppliers to trim costs, to use plastic parts instead of metal, to skimp on anything and everything they think they can get away with.
Where Apple is doing checks on their suppliers to make sure they're not employing child labour, that they're not endangering their employees with overly long work weeks, other companies are out there demanding they work harder, longer, and cheaper.
When China is no longer the cheapest shop in town they'll pack their bags and move on to the next place, and the next place, in their suicidal race to the bottom.
What's ironic here is that China is actually one of the biggest green energy proponents. They used coal to get their industrial base going, but solar and wind will be the big drivers behind the next push. While the US might have better environmental regulations, lately it's developed a severe allergy to "new things". Meanwhile China keeps deploying bigger and bigger solar installations: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/china-launches-lar...
No doubt China is interested in power and influence. They difference is they'd prefer to conquer economically rather than with military force. So far, that's working quite well for them.
> They difference is they'd prefer to conquer economically rather than with military force.
This is what Japan did post World War II and for the most part it worked out pretty well. Not a shot fired, and yet culturally and economically they're right up there with every G8 country. Japanese televisions showing Japanese cartoons all across the world.
In constrast, Russia, a country that's larger, more populated, and in a unique position to bridge Asia and Europe, is an irrelevant backwater country. Nobody in their right mind would want to own a Russian television or watch Russian shows unless they're Russian in the first place. It's a shame because Russia could have turned into something amazing instead of the place it is today.
Sadly the United States seems to be heading in the Russia direction while China is heading in the Japan direction.
Today? Yes. But also, what's your measurement for amazing? Based on the current state of the world, and the direction things are trending, I don't see any country that deserves the crown of amazing. What am I missing?
What countries like China have done in the last twenty years is also amazing. I'm not saying it's without problems, or that this progress is always worthwhile, but you've got to admit the dramatic transformation from backwater third world country to major industrial power in the span of a single generation is pretty amazing.
There's other examples like that, but they're mostly historical, like Iceland clawing its way out of being an impoverished country entirely dependent on scraping out a meagre existence fishing to a vibrant part of Europe both culturally and economically.
Even if things are made in America and cleanly they'll be made by machines, not meat. And crushed under not only 'Clean' regulations but Safety and other Quality standards that will drive prices of goods up. Not everyone will be able to secure these new Manufacturing jobs you want. So how will your person still stuck at Starbucks be able to afford them?
Why were the wages not sustainable?
That's why real US wages, stand-alone, have barely climbed in 40 years. Consider for a moment just how extremely high those wages were in ~1970, that it took decades for other high development nations to catch up.
That and the fact that healthcare costs over that time have soared in the US, so a big part of US compensation increases since 1970, have gone to employee health insurance costs (commonly anywhere from 10% to 30% of a person's compensation if you're near or above the median).
Bullshit. Utter bullshit. Productivity has continued to rise since the 1970s and yet wages are pretty much flat. That is: People are producing more value for their employers than ever before, but aren't being paid accordingly.
These wages are only "not sustainable" if you think corporations are entitled to cut costs, squeeze employees, and slash benefits all in the name of squeaking out ever increasing returns for shareholders or to pad out their own exorbinant executive salaries.
If anything's not sustainable it's current executive pay levels.
That's literally the reason most corporations exist, so yes they are entitled to do exactly that, to whatever degree the law and market allows.
The type of thinking you're espousing is the sort that bubbled to the surface in the 1980s where profit drove all decisions. No longer was there concern for the welfare of workers, for the long-term survival of the company, or anything, absolutely anything at all, other than making shareholders happy.
Companies never succeed by simply making profits. They succeed by making good products. Then they're acquired by hedge funds that squeeze them for every ounce of profit they're good for and sell the remaining husk for pennies on the dollar.
It's not necessarily the People but the machines/equipment they operate that are generating the 'more value' you speak of. The employees do not pay for this equipment and its maintenance. The Company does.
While it used to take 3 men 30 minutes to make a batch of ingredients with shovels and wheelbarrows, it now takes 1 Operator 30 seconds to push a button on an automated transfer system and watch it work. That one Operator is now producing 'more value' than his 3 predecessors. The lone Operator can now make 10 more batches a shift than 3 could before. Should he be paid accordingly for pushing a button versus the hard labor of 3 men?
I think the fact it's happening/has happened is 'bullshit' and that it's not 'right'. But the heavily automated jobs we have today aren't the same hard manual labor ones of the past. Large North American Manufacturers have to 'cut costs' to compete with offshore production, stay within strict Gov't Regulations, and survive(thus keeping jobs).
But preferably not make copyright beyond 28 years part of it.
And yes, free trade tends to make countries more equal in terms of wealth, but it tends to make wealth inequality greater within countries. Personally I'd like to see the introduction of small across-the-board tariffs on imports even with the recognition long term growth will be lower.
The average American has adequate health benefits [1] and makes around $25/hr [2,3].
> We just export all this pollution to China.
We sure do.
> Instead of a good unionized manufacturing job
But I question the assertion that without China we would still have strong unionized manufacturing labor. In fact, globalization was just one component of an ultimately successful, century-long coordinated attack on unionized labor.
[1] About 100 million Americans have no or inadequate healthcare, which is of course inexcusable but still means the "average" American does have healthcare. And this being the USA, that healthcare is likely tied to employment.
[2] https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/01/18/how-does-y...
[3] There are problems with [2], but computing (Mean Household Income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United... )/2 earners/52/40 = $17/hour as a very conservative lower bound.
Median personal income in the US is $31,000:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N
Half of the people represented there make that much or less.
Among full-time workers, as reported by the BLS, median income was about $45,000.
How many of them really are voluntarily part-time v. settling for a part-time job because they can't find a decent full-time job?
So what we got is the worst of both worlds, losing manufacturing jobs and getting the pollution resulting from a country that didn't care about the cost in pollution.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/world/asia/china-also-exp...
"It begs questions about the quality of life the world’s richest nation will tolerate for its poorer citizens, questions that have been thrown into sharp relief by the recent entry into North Carolina of China’s—indeed the world’s—largest pork processor, WH Group. Drawn by the low cost of production there, WH Group finds it cheaper to raise pigs in North Carolina and export them to tables back home than to raise the animals in China. "
That's blatantly false. The US has one of the highest median and median disposable income levels. The median US household income, at near $60,000 is also among the highest on the planet.
Median weekly earnings for a full-time job in the US, is about $860. Or over $40,000 per year. The number of major economies you can list that are at or near that level is very short: Australia, Switzerland, Norway, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium.
1% of US labor earns the minimum wage.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-manufacturing-dead-outpu...
The problem isn't really that the manufacturing jobs have been given to the cheap countries, it's that the US is okay with the top quintile grabbing all the money for themselves (probably because 'freedom')
A few years back, I was walking past a church downtown that was in the middle of being cleaned. The difference between the side that had been pressure-washed, and what remained to be done, was striking. Far more than just seeing the finished product. You look at something like that, realize that people lived and breathed it in daily for years, and you're almost surprised that anyone survived long enough to clean up the city's air in the first place.
1. http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/grand-central-ceiling-dar...
You're making up a false narrative.
>There are many thousands of regulations. They don't all make sense. They're not all necessary.
"Soooo many regulations, we couldn't possibly need all of these. Ignore the specific few discussed here lets make it about allllll these redundant regulations."
Not very smooth.
And just dodging my question.
I find it endlessly fascinating why liberals can't stick to straight Q&A despite the truth on their side.
Oh, is that not a fair comment? Then answer the simple question I asked.
Who are you talking to?
No one thought GWB would be a 2-term president. No one thought Trump was electable.
Thinking the assault on the EPA will suddenly be reversed next election - that's fantasy thinking.
Fact is, the government should be meaningfully increasing our regulation of emissions and pollution (in terms of costs) or some will cause irreversible results in the global ecology (coral reefs, ocean acidification, carbon levels, global temperature). Not moving forward means we lose ground.
We (as in homo sapiens) moved beyond that point years ago. Everything we can do now is attempt to reduce global permanent damage, not avoid it. Also, these attempts are not successful at this time.
That's nowhere close to the truth. Tens of millions of voters did; and likely tens of millions of more non-voting people thought so as well. Michael Moore thought Trump was going to win, because of how he was connecting as an anti-establishment candidate and Hillary was strictly representing the old establishment - in an anti-establishment election. Plenty of right-wing media outlets provided sound reasoning for why Trump would or could win.
George W. Bush was a double war President, who was still knee-deep into those wars in the run-up to the 2004 election, and a mere few years post 9/11. The Democrats ran two weak politicians at him. The second one vs Kerry, given the broader war/political context, was an obvious outcome.
Or do you mean that there will still be some rules about fuel economy?
Under the Nixon administration :)
Also, he was close to supporting national minimum income, as a reform of the welfare system.
In many ways, Nixon was more liberal than any President since. But he was a paranoid drunkard, and that was his downfall.
He hated black folks and hippies enough to start the War on Drugs which has absolutely destroyed black communities among others.
And sure, Nixon hated blacks and hippies. And Mexicans. And the War on Drugs has indeed been a disaster. But, I gotta ask, what President since has backed off substantially on the War on Drugs? Not Carter, as I recall. Or Reagan or Bush Sr. Or even Clinton. And for sure, not Bush Jr. Maybe Obama, to the extent of relaxing federal enforcement re marijuana in states that had legalized.
I thought FDR came close.
I was trying to find evidence of this but most google searches along these lines yield something called the Roosevelt Institute advocating UBI quite recently. I thought I did see a video of him advocating it in a speech.
Regarding the broader topic of Nixon and policies that are now considered left wing, ignoring for a moment that the country has shifted very far economically rightwards starting around the Reagan years, regarding things like the EPA, the way I always heard it from people of age in the Nixon years was that he was rather forced into some of these things by the way the will of the public was shifting.
And yes, Nixon was perhaps forced into it too. But actually, I mentioned that as evidence for the rightward shift since then.
http://www.wnyc.org/story/how-environment-got-political/
With the help of Richard Andrews, professor emeritus of environmental policy at UNC Chapel Hill, and William Ruckelshaus, EPA administrator under presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, Brooke considers the tumultuous history of the EPA, its evolving relationship with the public, and its uncertain future.
https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/63
Bring the family on down and roast some marshmallows and shit.
This is emotional, not rational.
As such, I got to see the horrible way we treated the planet and can remember the differences in both results and behavior.
It was not even remotely uncommon to just throw your trash out the car window. I don't mean a cigarette butt, but whole waste from a fast food meal, diapers, and any other refuse was simply thrown out of the window.
The national parks were even full of trash. You'd go into the park and the drive in was littered with the refuse from years of campers and visitors. It wasn't hidden, but right there in the open.
The bit about don't mess with Texas was actually a campaign to clean up Texas and stop the littering. The highways were littered more than one might expect at the enterences of today's landfills.
The rivers were polluted beyond what some seem to imagine today - and this was not that long ago. For a while, it was even considered sound science that the solution to pollution is dilution. Technically, that's probably sound theory but there is a finite amount of dilution to be had.
We've come a long ways and there are still things to complain about. However, we can now eat the fish from the rivers and probably not die. Probably...
Laws should change with the times and I don't know enough about the specifics to unilaterally condemn efforts to examine the status quo.
I try to be charitable, after all.
Do they? Or do they want to reduce some of the more obscure, less clearly useful regulations?
Have you heard any advocacy for say, removing catalytic converters from cars?
The most common thing I've heard is states rights, and not having this be a Federal thing, which isn't really about pollution.
Trump did run pandering to conservative wishes to defund the EPA. Trump won and is defunding the EPA. So yes.
> Or do they want to reduce some of the more obscure, less clearly useful regulations?
So obscure they involve the primary budget for the office and the main regulations enacted by them during Obama's time.
Yes. Spend time around car culture and you’ll see there are tons of people who advocate for the removal of catalytic converters and a drastic reduction in emission (and safety) standards. There are people proud to roll coal.
Also “states’ rights” arguments are almost always code for something else. The SR argument is never about the finer points of federalism.
> EPA Administrator Christie Whitman on Tuesday rescinded a Clinton administration decision that would have significantly reduced the amount of arsenic allowed in the nation's drinking water.
[1] http://articles.latimes.com/2001/mar/21/news/mn-44369
This was just one of hundreds of lame-duck rule changes he made as political payoffs only at the last 3 weeks of his 8-year Presidency.
I'll take it a step further and wonder why the whole world isn't on board with the idea of protecting what we have? It makes me very sad that we don't treat our planet with respect.
I bet those responsible all have big, nice houses in beautiful places where factories and mines and far far away and big coal/gas/oil companies help them to keep it this way. Those who vote for such policies are desperate (or stupid) enough to believe that this "will bring back jobs".
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/bengaluru-lake-frot...
https://www.ndtv.com/karnataka-news/bengalurus-bellandur-lak...
Is there some legal protection for polluters?
Why would the Trump Administration want to return to the polluted past? What is the benefit of pollution? It's insane.