this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
671 points (97.5% liked)

Political Memes

5429 readers
1390 users here now

Welcome to politcal memes!

These are our rules:

Be civilJokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.

No misinformationDon’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.

Posts should be memesRandom pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.

No bots, spam or self-promotionFollow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 month ago

Too bad Biden kept the tariffs Trump instituted during his term and increased them. Trump will add even more tariffs during his term, but I'm not confident that the democrat that follows won't also keep and add onto them.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

To be fair, it's corporations choosing to raise the price instead of making less money. You see this exact argument from the other side when the left wants to make the wealthy pay taxes. Either way it's a deeply flawed argument.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Is there really any way to get us making things again?

Part of me feels like that would be better for workers, but I'm kind of a dumbass

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Do you want things to be cheaper or wages to be higher (especially wages for those in low wage jobs).

There were ideals about competitive advantage. But the whole economy has been undercut by lower wages elsewhere that things got cheaper but not because of increases in productivity in the economy so wages went down.

There are a lot of pressure to deflate wages with free trade and immigration. But things that increase wages like market forces and limited labour aren't really a factor anymore.

Making things again would be taxes on imports, free education, tax breaks for RandD and investment. Also subsidies and blocks on exporting IP and knowledge.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So trumps tariff plan could get us making things in America again or no? It seems like workers had a lot more power and therefore higher wages before america de-industrialized and that was a better thing for the average person but I don't know I wasn't around then

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I'm not American so I don't really know what's going on. It seems that people, especially on this website, can't see anything Trump says or does as a positive because he isn't on their team. But he certainly has said and done things that are right or a positive at least for some people. Can't just disagree with someone for the sole reason you don't like him.

But economics is complicated. For example trade barriers make things more expensive and could increase jobs or decrease them. Or more accurately increase in some areas and decrease in others. No one knows what's going to happen for sure, even looking back people disagree on what has happened.

But I personally think there has been too much emphasis on GDP growth around the western world and lower business costs rather than increasing discretionary income and jobs for lowest earners. So policies that are weighted for that rather than businesses I see as net gain at the moment.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Trump is an evil bigot but yeah even a broken clock is right twice a day. I can't stand people who dismiss or demonize an argument for the sole reason that it has been voiced by trump.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (3 children)

You mean like the tariffs to EVs that Biden announced?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

How dare you point out the hypocrisy?! Seriously though, people downvoting you need to understand that while democrats are better than trump on most issues, they're largely the same on this particular issue, so it's not exactly a point that can be pinned solely on trump.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Those taxes didn’t really impact many things that American consumers can already buy.

They mostly hit Chinese manufacturers that were on the edge of releasing sub-40k EV in the US. Example: Geely’s Volvo ex30. That thing is a very compelling alternative to what Tesla offers.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

A cheaper ev hitting us market would impact what americans can buy,

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

My point is that Biden’s 100% tariffs on Chinese manufacturers EVs do not increase the cost of living in the US. It basically keeps it the same, since Americans really aren’t buying BYD or Geely cars coming from Chinese manufacturing lines.

Trump’s proposed tariffs would increase the cost of goods people in the US are already purchasing, not just the goods people might purchase.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yea, those are bad, too. Are you under the impression that we just don't have enough of them and that's the issue?

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

No, I mean that it's hypocritical criticising the other administration for following the same trend

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

A great deal of the Biden economic policy is focused on decoupling from China and moving outsourced corporate slave labor practices to US allies in India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

But the rub is that these countries are just importing cheap manufactured surplus from China, rebranding it, and shipping it to the US after collecting a transfer fee.

So a lot of this isn't hypocrisy as much as it is the nationalist geopolitics of DC running into the greed and deceptive practices of international business interests.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The "slave labor" thing about china is 40 years too late. China now has wildly better working conditions than India or Phillipines or Indonesia or Malaysia.

Aren't you concerned with the cold-war-like escalation that we're seeing the US adopt against china?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Right, but it's Lemmy. Talking about the universal housing, elimination of poverty, age 60 retirement policy, no chronic student debts or medical debts, blah blah blah makes you a far left anti-Taiwan tankie.

Aren’t you concerned with the cold-war-like escalation

Terrified. But more for American East Asians, at the end of the day. They're already getting the Arab-American treatment by degrees. If we continue to escalate, it won't be long before they're full 2nd class citizens.

load more comments
view more: next ›