Oh I agree it’s entirely unreasonable. But that’s what you signed up for - it’s okay to be angry, I would too, but pretending that’s not what the deal was from the start is pretty naive.
I somewhat agree, but I still think the "job posting" market needs regulation.
If you aren't going to shutdown offshoring and the importing of labor through the abuse of things like the H1B program, you aren't going to accomplish much in terms of fixing how the average American worker is treated.
I recently saw a project that spammed online job postings with AI slop resumes. This is great since... if your posting is slop and you don't intend to hire, you should have your inbox filled with slop. It only makes sense.
No they don't. This kind of mustachio-twirling caricature isn't a helpful mental model of how business works.
Businesses are just large bunches of people, each trying to maximize various metrics given the incentives they interact with. None of those people, including the owner, is automatically pro-slavery, which is the other word for "wants free labor."
Everybody wants to maximize their money received and minimize their money and work expended to whatever degree possible. This isn't evil nor is it specific to "businesses," "business owners," or "rich people" either.
I find generally the most helpful thing you can factor in when trying to work out how a business is thinking is "what set of things would make my viable business predictable". If there's a factor HN threads tend to miss in these discussions, it's determinism.
> Everybody wants to maximize their money received and minimize their money and work expended to whatever degree possible.
...is exactly in agreement with what I said above.
The ideal business is one where you take in money and have no expenditures. E.g., If you're a landlord, you want super high rent and no expenditures on maintenance or improvements.
I would also accept the other direction. That is, a tenant wants use of a property for no rent, ideally.
My point was that small businesses aren't noble somehow. They want money for free just like everybody else.
>If you're a landlord, you want super high rent and no expenditures on maintenance or improvements.
No, I'm in the landlord business, and they do not want this. They want mildly-high rent that covers overhead plus a healthy (maybe even a little fat) overhead. They want to do maintenance, because apparently the biggest paydays come 10 years down the line when they sell to some other investor... and if it's a slum they won't get a good price or even a sale. They want good reviews from people who pay rent on time (or hell, even the people who are occasionally late but come through in the end), and they just want to be a trillion light years away from the hoarders, squatters, and apartment-destroyers.
Seen from the other side, you'd come to realize that almost all the horror stories you've heard are, at minimum, far more nuanced than you were led to believe, and that some large fraction were just fabricated entirely by people you'd never want living next door to you.
>My point was that small businesses aren't noble somehow. T
That's the thing though. There's this gigantic middle ground between nobility and villainy which is people just trying to get along and do what they're obligated to do, but you have leftists everywhere constantly slandering them because a German miscreant two centuries ago liked to mooch off his rich friends.
I don't want money for free. I want to be able to earn it, and earn well. I want to feel like I've accomplished something. Only children want things for free (because they know no better), and it's what separates them from adults.
I believe all of this but also want to say that in my life as a renter I never once had a landlord return a security deposit without me taking them to court. There's definitely some ruthlessness.
Interesting, but on the other side of the coin I can tell you that in 10 years of renting I've only foregone small fractions of my deposits and always by choice (pre-departure inspection tells you what they'd charge for anything amiss, and you can choose to clean/fix/etc. or pay them out of your deposit). If you don't get a pre-departure inspection you're definitely set up for ambiguity and shadiness.
In one apartment, I even spilled some bleach in a closet, and sneakily replaced the piece of carpet from the scraps I found when they were recarpeting a nearby unit. They didn't notice or care.
I've been a perfect tenant my entire life, and I was still always treated like trash by every landlord I've rented from. I don't think they make a distinction.
> I don't want money for free. I want to be able to earn it, and earn well. I want to feel like I've accomplished something.
Well, if that's true then I wouldn't bother being a landlord. Being a landlord just means your name is on the title of a building such that it allows you to extract money from people who need a place to live. It's not creative, it's not original, and it's only possible because they aren't making any more real estate, but they're always making more people.
I said above to another commenter: I would also like to be a landlord one day. I'm sure I'd be a decent one. But, I won't be pretending like I'm doing anything productive... I'm just extracting money from the fact that my name is on a deed. Nothing more, nothing less.
It's just how our economy is set up, and, like everyone, I plan to try and take advantage of it. I won't be kidding myself, though, that I'm somehow a productive or noble small business man.
>Well, if that's true then I wouldn't bother being a landlord. Being a landlord just means your name is on the title of a building such that it allows you to extract money from people who need a place to live.
And, I expect, as a point of fact... you haven't bothered to be a landlord.
>It's just how our economy is set up, and, like everyone, I plan to try and take advantage of it.
That's how you perceive it. But the reality of it is that while many are hustling, few are prospering, few enough even that reasonable people might wonder if the few successful ones are the result of luck more than having figured out the get-rich-quick thing that everyone's been trying to figure out for millennia. Good luck, I suppose.
I am a landlord. I charge below market rent because it is enough to meet my financial goals and turning over a new tenant is annoying. I spare no expense on maintenance because I value my assets.
You may have a more reasonable stance than most landlords, but that doesn't change the essence of the transaction.
If you could get higher rent without getting punished by the market (turnover), you would do it. If you could spend less on maintenance without getting punished by the market (turnover and reduced resale value), you would do it.
Many, if not most, landlords push both of these levers to their absolute limits.
The essence of being a landlord is that you've got your name on the title of a scarce resource that is difficult or impossible in some cases to duplicate: real estate in a particular location. The fact that your name is on this title means that you can extract value from people who need a place to live and did not arrive there first so they could buy the cheap property, build the building, etc.
Don't get me wrong, I hope to be a landlord too some day. Ownership is what matters when there's nowhere else to move. I look forward to the rent checks. However, I won't be pretending there's anything noble or fair about what I'm doing. It's just how the rules of our economy are set up.
> The ideal business is one where you take in money and have no expenditures.
This isn't a business. And if you found a way to do this, you'd be subject to endless audits and AML/CTF suspicions because actual businesses don't look like this.
Business owners come in a range of personalities, just like everyone else. Some are selfish and unreasonable. Some are altruistic and generous. Some are purely in it for the money, others really love building teams and working in a friendly environment. Some have global ambitions, others just want to get by with as little effort as possible.
You can claim depreciation on all your hardware (including your desk and chair).
You should be claiming some of your rent/mortgage as office expenses. And, obviously, your broadband cost, your electricity bill, your heating bill (if different), etc.
You can claim all the coffees you buy potential clients.
Having zero expenses is absolutely not what you want to efficiently run your business.
> The ideal business is one where you take in money and have no expenditures.
> property but no rent
I mean, I guess sure, but... only lunatics think that exists legally and sustainably.
Certainly no one who has managed to get a business degree, or attain any leadership role, thinks so foolishly.
Normal businesspeople know that if you pay minimum wage you can expect only a weak effort, and also they don't waste their mental energy fantasizing about anybody 'working for free.'
As a manager, I fantasize about getting everyone under me paid enough to hold turnover very low (because turnover sucks), but not so highly that my team becomes a poor ROI that economically should be replaced with (AI, an offshore team, a couple people from a consulting firm, etc.) -- and I'm sure the CEO and any non-crazy shareholders want that equilibrium as well.
> Every business owner, regardless of the size of the business, wants free labor.
Yeah, no.
I’m no longer an entrepreneur - ran out of runway - but it was always my goal to have aggressive profit sharing as part of my company. Acceptable salaries - years of those salaries saved “in the bank” and profit-share the rest.
I never wanted free labor. In fact, the reason I didn’t have employees is because I couldn’t afford them at the rate they deserved. People deserve to be treated as people. People deserve to be treated well.
I want to play the “game” of creating things I want created and making enough money to comfortably sustain myself and help those I care about.
If I’m hiring people, I want people that want the same things as me and are paid well, or people that are willing to exchange their labor for both a respectable base earning and also extra earning based on how we, collectively, are doing.
Some people, curiously, believe that business is only valid if it operates as a caricature of the worst traits of modern corporate America.
That’s the game, and some people believe it’s the only game.
I’m with you though. For me business isn’t a channel for hoarding all possible resources and assets. It’s a combination of a craft and a means to an end. I’d still do it if I needed no profession, because it’s a craft I enjoy.
It’s fun to share that craft, and it’s good to share that craft on generous terms.
The subtle irony is that the version of the “game” as referenced in that other comment is the same, expect that all those niceties only apply to executives and people who already have lots of money. A socially perverse arrangement, to be sure.
I think you're leaving out a few "all things being equal" and other caveats. Compensation is not necessarily monetary (especially in the US), costs are more than just salary, etc.
> This is mostly used incompetently, but occasionally used maliciously.
It can also just be a good heuristic. If a person or group/org with a reputation for dishonesty tells you an "idea", it's reasonable to throw shade.
> I think I see this most commonly in politics, where if <obviously bad> person supports an idea, then that idea must be also bad.
The conclusion is not always this direct, but it is completely reasonable to question ~why~ the obviously bad person holds that idea. What do they gain from pushing the agenda? Some people are so intellectually dishonest that everything they say is suspect.
A lot of supporters of the trade restrictions don't care. They're working people who don't own a lot of stocks and all they've seen is their jobs sent overseas.
To them, it doesn't even matter if things get "worse" for a while. Their life is already meeting every economic headwind imaginable.
> Their life is already meeting every economic headwind imaginable.
Then they’ve failed to imagine how much more difficult their life will become under excessive tariffs.
It’s also eye-opening to watch so many people in my extended family and social network cheer on DOGE and tariffs right until they impact their own jobs. Lot of people out there didn’t connect the dots about how their own jobs were going to be impacted by tariffs.
> Then they’ve failed to imagine how much more difficult their life will become under excessive tariffs.
Again, these workers don't have jobs. When the John Deere factory closes down in your town and moves to Mexico, tariffs sound good even if it's just to punish such companies and the abuse of their workers.
If you're unemployed and living on whatever odd jobs and government assistance you can get, tariffs won't make one bit of difference in your life. Factories may even return, and your life may improve. It's better than just accepting your situation.
> If you're unemployed and living on whatever odd jobs and government assistance you can get, tariffs won't make one bit of difference in your life.
Prices going up on everything will absolutely make a difference in their lives. Even with government assistance and very low income, they still have to buy things to live - and they'll be able to afford even less. The poorer you are, the harder this is going to hit you.
They are absolutely buying goods that are manufactured in countries subject to these tariffs. They have to buy clothes and all sorts of everyday items, and since they can't afford to buy things manufactured in the US (when that's even an option), it's very likely they buy things that are made in China/etc at a higher rate that wealthier people. Even going back to your examples, flour will be going up in price, as well as gas and car parts.
Your comment insinuates that people complaining about tariffs are disconnected from those living in poverty, but thinking that those living in poverty won't be affected by prices going up around the board is a much bigger disconnect.
Oil may go down. Flour? The combine to reap the wheat will go up, why would flour go down?
Poor people in the hood still wear clothes. Clothes will go up.
That car on the verge of breaking down? Car parts will go up.
Poor people still have a supply-chain footprint that has many branches outside the country. At least some of the things they need are going to get more expensive.
Do I have it right? The honest hard working American doesn't exist and won't feel it. Either we're criminally rich or just criminals? What a weird argument.
Yeah and when it does break down, the parts are going to cost more to fix it.
And what are they gonna do when their car breaks down catastrophically? Buy a used car? The prices of those will skyrocket once the price of new cars goes up.
Then really desperate people will steal cars as the value of them, and used parts start to skyrocket.
It doesn't even take half a brain cell to see how this works.
> They are not buying the latest igadget, or really anything chinese/gloablist for that matter, except for whatever junk at dollar tree. They buy flour, they buy gas and they pray their car doesn't break down.
You don’t understand how interconnected the economy is.
You don’t really think that flour appears on the shelves at the store without any coupling to internationally-sourced goods, do you? The parts for the farm equipment, the steel for the buildings it’s stored in, the vehicles that deliver it to the store.
This idea of the economy as an ultra-simplistic 1:1 line between raw product and the supermarket shelves is not how the world works.
Ignoring that, you conveniently glossed over the part about their car breaking down. What happens now when their car does need new parts? Tires wear out?
It’s also absurd to claim that poor people don’t enjoy things like access to cheap cellular phones.
Sure, I'll take you up on that offer. I grew up in a poor fishing family struggling to survive living in a trailer park so I'm very well aware of what it's like growing up in deep poverty.
Frankly I know more poor people than you pretend to know and the reality is that they are going to suffer far more under these tariffs than anyone else. All that stuff they buy at dollar tree because they have no other options are imported from all over the world because that's the cheapest stuff available.
You won't convince him, because he is not open to be convinced.
I think things will get ugly for the poorest people in society, but I am curious at how things will get ugly exactly.
I don't think price increases due to tariffs will be the worst if it. I think the perfect storm of higher prices, lower economic activity due to the halt in global trade, poor stock market perform performance, and ultimately economic contraction will result in mass layoffs, companies going out of business, and high unemployment rate.
Suddenly people won't even be able to find that odd job anymore.
Tariffs will have an larger impact on low income people because they act as a flat tax on goods. There is a certain fixed dollar value that everyone needs to survive the month, and that value just got larger while income remained the same. When you're poor the smallest increase in cost of living pushes you in to the red.
This is why inflation was such a huge issue. I fail to see how this is any different.
They’ll make things harder to afford but I get your point. They had one way to make money which was their factory and now it’s gone and orange man is promising he’ll bring it back. It’s a no brainer, of course you go all in on that one hope that you have.
> If you're unemployed and living on whatever odd jobs and government assistance you can get, tariffs won't make one bit of difference in your life.
That government assistance is also being threatened (often by adding work requirements to it), and those odd jobs can also go away or become much more scarce if the economy goes over the edge.
Finally, the cost of everything will go up, which will hit those that are scraping by with odd jobs and government assistance the hardest.
I hope it doesn’t happen, but when you assert things are as bad as they can get, that just doesn’t match the situation you described. They can get worse.
It does matter if things get worse and it's very uncaring to say otherwise. The import taxes are going to make wealth inequality much worse and significantly hurt not just almost all American's but large swathes of the world too.
labour participation rate is the number you want to be looking at - unemployment excludes people who have given up looking
anectdotally, you dont see people dropping out of universities en masse because businesses are desperate for workers and willing to make it worth students while to put off or skip the education.
you see that in and out in tech/software dev, but not across industries
> A lot of supporters of the trade restrictions don't care. They're working people who don't own a lot of stocks and all they've seen is their jobs sent overseas
A lot of us were also in the market before the pandemic (aka before 4 years ago), so we remain in the green.
Personally, it's a win-win.
1. Based on past tariff action, the current tariffs will not be repealed by any future administration - there is plenty of harsh feelings amongst some of us Dems who were IRA adjacent to France and Germany's lobbying against the Green New Deal and calling it "protectionism".
2. This plus DOGE has caused short term pain as reflected in the NY by-elections leading to Stefanik's nomination to the UN being pulled.
3. Those of us with some sympathy for economic nationalism but don't caucus GOP have been vindicated, but have a messaging tool now as well.
4. We can finally take the UAW and ILA national leadership behind a shed and pull a metaphorical old yeller. There's no point trying to make peace with National when much of their local leadership leans GOP. Makes it easier to concentrate on AZ, NV, and GA - states where the demographic and union makeup is completely orthogonal to the UAW and ILA's cadre. Makes it easier to help the AFL-CIO as well.
5. Sullivan and Raimondo's doctrine has been vindicated. Philippines, Brazil, Colombia, Malaysia, and India have now been made much more cost competitive than China or transshipment via Vietnam or Thailand - either you reduce transshipment from China or your competitors in apparel, textiles, and electronics are subsidized. Vietnam already has sent their Dy PM to negotiate as we speak to reduce tariffs.
Europe also has no option but to diversify away from China as well. Either you fund a state selling intermediate parts to Russia in Ukraine, or start building domestic defense and industrial capabilities like that which existed before the 2000s (which they are now doing).
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Already, some of my peers from my previous life have started testing the waters for a Dem equivalent of the Tea Party. Lot of realignment coming in the next 2 election cycles.
curious what the Dem equivalent of the tea party means? Does that mean a libertarian streak before populist takeover, or is that meant more in terms of a critical voting block to extract concessions?
As in a more populist or outsider type tinge (or vocalizing those positions).
I'd disagree with a number of their foreign policy choices, but the house doesn't really set foreign policy, and the hawkish policies I'd want will anyhow be pushed by this admin but not revoked by any incoming admin.
There's a pretty solid crop of state assembly members and outsiders who can competitively primary out a number of older generation Dems, assuming a model similar to Illinois and NY 2020 is followed.
Plenty of his supporters are SMB owners or people that work in trades/factories. This is not a revolution of the indigent. What these people don't realize is even if they make 200K a year and drive an 85K financed F-250, they are effectively in the same class as someone making 50K a year managing a Dollar General. These people have no class awareness and they voted in a representative of the ultra wealthy intent on pillaging our economy. Some may believe that Trump will usher in some era of economic prosperity but they are wrong.
On the other hand Trump will deliver on another, implicit promise to them, which is inflict pain and suffering on a great deal of people they dislike for whatever reason.
> What these people don't realize is even if they make 200K a year and drive an 85K financed F-250, they are effectively in the same class as someone making 50K a year managing a Dollar General.
More people making under 50K per year voted for Trump in 2024 than voted for Harris.
I didn't say people making under 50k weren't voting for Trump. I was saying it's not exclusively some revolution of the poor (statistically it can't be). My larger point is it doesn't matter whether his voters make 50k or 200k, they are the lowest class in American society and voting for Trump and his attendant policies is against their own economic interests.
And despite economic prosperity being the cornerstone of his 2024 campaign, somehow it isn't anymore. Now his supporters have pivoted to this idea that we must all live in a kind of austerity so that collectively (waves hands around) we enter a new age of American prosperity. Literally this sea change in MAGA sentiment has happened in the last six weeks. It's baffling.
> On the other hand Trump will deliver on another, implicit promise to them, which is inflict pain and suffering on a great deal of people they dislike for whatever reason.
Not so implicit, "I will be your retribution".
And this part is very much a normal Republican position. The realisation that Americans will vote for a policy which hurts them so long as it's positioned as hurting the people they hate was key to Republican success.
"Nobody gets kicked in the head" loses in American politics if it's up against "Everybody gets kicked in the head, yes those awful people you don't like will get kicked in the head"
And when your implementation "accidentally" forgets to kick the wealthy in the head? Well the important thing is you kicked people in the head - you're not one of those scum who don't want to kick the awful people in the head.
I don't particularly like the idea of tariffs, but it is what it is.
Having to put up with policies you don't like is simply the social consequence of applying unpopular policies for four years in the other direction.
If the opposing party supports outsourcing, importing of labor, no protections for domestic industry, then they should expect retaliation from people who don't like those policies and who have the means to vote in someone who will push for whatever they view as corrective action.
This is a democracy. If one party pushes unpopular policies (unpopular to the other side), don't be surprised with the opposition pushes back.
If people don't want things to continue to deteriorate, then the economic disenfranchisement of the American working class must be put to a stop. It's really pretty simple.
> Los Angeles Times’s Vincent Bevins, who wrote that “both Brexit and Trumpism are the very, very wrong answers to legitimate questions that urban elites have refused to ask for 30 years.” Bevins went on: “Since the 1980s the elites in rich countries have overplayed their hand, taking all the gains for themselves and just covering their ears when anyone else talks, and now they are watching in horror as voters revolt.”
The problem is that the actual solution is taxes and redistribution but if you try that, they’ll lynch you (the very people who would benefit most from it). Better to have weird Trumponomics than that.
I don't think it's that simple. First, the US economy was supercharged by virtue of being the only economy left humming along after WW2.
Also, in the mid 20th century, the top income tax rate was 91%. Now it's 37%. Capital gains taxes were also much higher. The wealthy were taxed much more heavily during our economic boom times than now. It's not hard to think that having a more equitable distribution of wealth, not taxes, might have something to do with it.
They don’t have to own stocks. If they like eating and buying household goods then this will affect them negatively. It will help very few people for a long time, even if it goes perfectly to plan.
I’d be extremely surprised if other countries meekly do what Trump wants. There are many options on the table, and change is more likely in a crisis.
> To them, it doesn't even matter if things get "worse" for a while. Their life is already meeting every economic headwind imaginable.
Really? How do you even know that? You think another round of price hikes within the year is unimaginable, which what the economic consensus on immediate tariffs this high predicts?
The unemployment rate is 4%. The amount of liberation day tariff supporters is an order of magnitude higher than that. Pretending that things can't get worse is dangerous and stupid.
> Their life is already meeting every economic headwind imaginable
Horseshit. The most fervent Trump supporters are upper-middle class professionals who are bored with their lives. Hence the frequent boat parades for Trump. It's why the huge, expensive trucks are the ones flying the Trump flags. And practically all of them have 401ks, which means they are at least indirectly invested in stocks.
That may be your lived experience, but it doesn't match the data.[1]
The working class is shifting to Trump because his rhetoric matches what they want to see: trade restrictions, protections on domestic labor, and the return of good/stable manufacturing jobs.
Trump is almost certainly not the best representation of the American worker, but he's winning because he, at least, tells them what they want to hear.
The local food bank I donate to sends out a quarterly newsletter and the number of families it serves has more than quadrupled since 2020.
I think this is the primary reason the Democrats have been losing, clearly voters are feeling economic hardship in a big way, and ignoring it or belittling the point is what lost voters.
We can't focus on social issues when the hierarchy of needs isn't being met.
Historically a lot of Republicans have derided poverty statistics and poverty programs because the people on the programs “all have big screen TVs”[0]. I’m not sure the politics are as clear cut as you indicate.
I mean, I watched and participated in the US Election last year, it was extremely clear to me that Republicans focused on economy, and Democrats focused on social issues.
The Republicans won, which is an indictment on the Democrats messaging in my opinion.
I'm not even talking about the merits of which party has better ideas, or if people are voting against their own best interests. But I think the party that said they'd do "something" to make the economy better is the one that won.
Why Democrats don't hammer on retraining and education so that more people can participate in the services and information economy confuses me greatly. Manufacturing isn't coming back, at least not immediately.
> that Republicans focused on economy, and Democrats focused on social issues.
That impression is partially an artifact of the information space disparity. Republicans spent a ton of time talking about social issues and the Democrats talked about lot about economic issues, but coverage of those things was wildly uneven. If you had any exposure to the Hispanic communities affected by deportations now, ask how many of the people making “I didn’t know he’d deport hard-working people like …” comments spent 2024 hearing a ton about how trans were threatening women or drag queens were grooming kids to be gay on WhatsApp/Telegram, and not coverage of the many, many times widespread deportation was promised. It’s almost a cliche to find people who thought they were voting for lower prices and are just now realizing that tariffs are taxes they pay, and that’s a function of where they get their news.
Yeah I definitely didn't say I agree with the methods proposed, only that it's clear that it struck a chord with the population.
Dems really need to focus on messaging that can resonate with those people. Things like vouchers for trade school to boost higher end blue collar jobs, etc.
You're both painting polarized views. I'm from the rust belt where many of these disenfranchised can be found. Manufacturing isn't coming back. Tariffs are only going to increase the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
I think the point was that these tariffs are hurting stocks because it is hurting workers, which hurts consumer spending. These tariffs are against workers primarily. The next time you see someone digging up a water main check their boots, the supervisor might be wearing Carhartt and Redwing, if they are a hipster, but the people who are muddy are typically wearing much cheaper imported equipment.
Its a perspective thing. I saw an interview a couple weeks ago of a man in his 30s saying he finished high school and couldn't find a warehouse job like his father did and had been working odd jobs ever since.
To my parents that was an unacceptable thing, had I finished high school and not done college (or some vocational school) I'm sure they would have kicked me out of their place. So not continuing my education was never an option, I had to, because from their perspective that was the only way.
This other dude never had this, his dad worked an warehouse job at some big box store more likely, went up the chain there and made a decent living for his family. The expectation for the family was that if their kids had done the same, it would have been fine, he said his father never even finished high school, but that isn't reality anymore for most people and I don't think this has been a culturally set reality in the US.
People were very much still expecting this would continue to be a thing but its very hard for you to do that in a place where there is very little manufacture and with so much tech taking over brick and mortar stores.
The thing with tech taking over the world, is it's taking over the world everywhere and the last few places where labor is still cheap are employing humans.
In so much stuff involving process automation if you go about building a new factory you're going to minimize your labor costs as much as possible. The only dumb jobs that remain pay very low and/or are back breaking, and everything else is a high tech job. On top of that process efficiency means that a single factory somewhere could easily produce all the product needed to meet world demand, the most difficult part would be meeting regulations in other countries. We are past the days where you need 20+ factories building the same thing in the US for most products. You build it in one place and put it on a truck with fast and cheap shipping.
People will keep crying for a past that no longer exists while the world changes ever faster.
The US has a ton of manufacturing, but few manufacturing jobs, because they automated a lot of the aspects of production. This was one the biggest concerns by Andrew Yang when running for president, lack of good jobs because of automation takeover.
I don't think the parent is seriously describing these people as actually facing every economic headwind, but is instead pointing out the lack of imagination on the part of the people supporting this policy.
"Things are terrible, so we have to do something!" No, you have to do something that will help. Just "doing something" isn't good enough. And if you think "things can't get any worse", yeah, they can. A lot worse.
Don't make random changes just because things are bad. You need changes that will help, which is a lot harder.
I make less working remotely in a LCOL area than I would in the HCOL area where my office resides. The differential in COL, though, is so high that I'm saving a lot more. In other words, I'm making less but I'm building more wealth.
Most of the money that goes into living in a HCOL area and commuting to office is just pure waste to satisfy the egos of upper managers who want to preside over a big floor of workers.
That seem like a reductive take on why people live in HCOL areas. Those areas cost a lot because most people believe the quality of life is better, which raises the cost of living due to competition for real estate.
If every part of the US became equally expensive and convenient for work, VHCOL areas like the Bay Area would still be immediately oversubscribed for reasons unrelated to work.
The Bay Area has arguably the best climate (cool Mediterranean) of any major city, unique proximity to a diverse set of outdoor recreation (Big Sur, Napa, Yosemite, Tahoe just to name a few), and all the desirable amenities of a major metro area.
That’s not to say you can’t have a perfectly happy life in other areas if you have different preferences, but the cost of living is ultimately a market, driven by the aggregate preferences of all people.
This is a complete and total ripoff. Everyone knows it.