But it's not the 1920s again. Acting like it is isn't going to work in this climate.
You want to demand higher wages? Great. Yet more jobs go overseas, priced out of the US by the higher labor costs.
You want to protect against cheap imports (created by cheap workers) with tariffs? Well, you just made everything everyone buys from overseas more expensive, so the cost of living went up. You also just broke a bunch of trade agreements, and there will probably be retaliation from quite a few trade partners, resulting in fewer exports, which will cost jobs.
The world is a much more complicated place than it was in the 1920s. Simple responses aren't likely to fix things. We need to fix things - I'm with you there, there's a lot that's broken from the point of view of the working person - but an antagonistic power struggle is unlikely to produce an improvement.
Eh, you clearly don't understand what being organized and pushing back politically means.
> You want to protect against cheap imports (created by cheap workers) with tariffs? Well, you just made everything everyone buys from overseas more expensive, so the cost of living went up. You also just broke a bunch of trade agreements, and there will probably be retaliation from quite a few trade partners, resulting in fewer exports, which will cost jobs.
Your point of view is exactly why Trump exists, populist outrage. That populist outrage is available for anyone to tap precisely because:
A) Labor is getting screwed.
B) There are a bunch of people whose strong views were in the closet and willing to take any panderer that offers a possibility their views will be heard.
These things don't exist in a vacuum. You need outlets and balanced scales, politically, or you'll end up with populist panderers.
> The world is a much more complicated place than it was in the 1920s. Simple responses aren't likely to fix things. We need to fix things - I'm with you there, there's a lot that's broken from the point of view of the working person - but an antagonistic power struggle is unlikely to produce an improvement.
There is an antagonist power struggle. The fact you believe there isn't or there shouldn't be has been the game they've played for 40+ years. (i.e. Collective, organized labor as a political force is bad)
If this power struggle, which you are convinced doesn't exist, truly did not exist...why is there such a disproportionate shift in income growth? Such a powerful and effective push for lower tax rates for the rich than everyone else?
The AMT was originally intended to minimize the disparity for people making substantial money btw. It was created to deal with corporations/people with extremely low tax burdens (i.e. 0%) and so forth.
The problem here isn't the gross income, the problem is how the income is distributed by the tax system. The concept the burden "increased" is an illusion since its largely caused by increased income concentration (by percentage) rather than fundamental tax code changes that shift things. (i.e. Tax the wealthier more, tax the poor less)
The jobs that can go overseas are pushed overseas regardless.
The jobs that can't be pushed overseas? Turns out fighting for higher wages works well, as the fight for 15 can testify to.
>You want to protect against cheap imports (created by cheap workers) with tariffs? Well, you just made everything everyone buys from overseas more expensive
When that's offset by rising wages, which, in the absence of underpriced competition it will - the people at the bottom end aren't bothered. They're happy, in fact.
Besides, what eats up most people's paychecks these days? Not plastic crap from China - student loan repayments and rent/mortgage payment to keep a roof over your head.
>The world is a much more complicated place than it was in the 1920s.
Yet some things never change.
> The jobs that can go overseas are pushed overseas regardless.
No. For every increase in the minimum wage, some incremental amount of jobs get pushed overseas.
What is true, though, is that those jobs were pretty crummy jobs. You can make a case that we didn't want them anyway. And if we had better jobs to replace them with, I think I'd agree. We don't, though, at least not at the moment.
> >You want to protect against cheap imports (created by cheap workers) with tariffs? Well, you just made everything everyone buys from overseas more expensive
> When that's offset by rising wages, the people at the bottom end aren't bothered. They're happy, in fact.
That's probably true. It probably hurts the middle class, though. Hurting the middle class to help the bottom isn't really the trade-off we want. We want the pain to go more to the upper- or upper-middle class.
^^^ What gets threatened by lobbyists fighting minimum wage increases.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/b9602ba0-3c91-11e6-8716-a4a71e8140... (Push for higher wages squeezes US corporate profits)
^^^ What actually happens in reality
>That's probably true. It probably hurts the middle class, though. Hurting the middle class to help the bottom isn't really the trade-off we want
^^^ What politicians say when Bernie Sanders proposes raising taxes on people earning over 200k / year.
There isn't much of a middle class left in America these days. The people who would be helped are in the majority.
Because you are both comparing oranges to oranges.
France's problem (frankly) is their labor protections are too strong.
America's problem (frankly) is their labor protections are too weak.
The parallels to be drawn here are not what you or the OP would like them to be.
The standard of living since 1916 has improved substantially and maintaining a modern level of living is expensive.
If I want to live like a college student (2 to a room, no car, and only food I prepare myself) I could be retired in my late 30s. I don't live that way and that costs something.
http://www.pbs.org/livelyhood/workday/weekend/timeline.html
Similarly, the gains from 1916 -> now are mostly in things we take for granted. The 40 hour work week (it used to be 60 then it became 48 and then 40), the access to quality medical care wasn't common, people lived two to a room in smaller homes, people didn't have the mobility of a car but relied on their own muscles, etc.
A good 50% of the productivity gains over the last 100 years went to moving things from 60 hour work weeks to 40. Modern conveniences represent the other half.
The reality is we got screwed in the 1980s -> 2016 in the US but that is a separate problem and conflating the two doesn't help anyone. Labor needs to start acting like its the 1920s again and get organized and push back politically.