CAA Flagship wrote:∞∞∞ wrote:
One party had a detailed plan investing tens of billion into retraining Americans for 21st century jobs.
The other said they'll bring back outdated 20th century jobs, and MAGA!
Adaptation is key to survival. See Pittsburgh.
Big picture, Trip. As the world's biggest economic power, we should not be dependent on anyone else in any category, especially when it is because of financial manipulation by our trading partners.
The United States is only made up of 330 million people, and the working class in any first-world society is typically ~35% of the population...so lets go with 115 million working adults.
So if you want to be independent in all categories, you need the appropriate workforce. If that's the case, you need to bring in lots of new, likely unskilled and low-educated immigrants. But Americans don't want that.
So to continue production capacity, American companies need to shift facilities to cheaper nations and/or increase the use or robots. But Americans don't want that.
So the other option is focus on retraining for innovative, 21st century jobs and limit yourself in what can produce. But apparently Americans don't want that.
So the other option is closing off the borders, producing everything with limited capacity and increased prices in all sectors. Americans kinda want that?
And then there's two radical ideas. The first is war and simply taking over other resources (doubt Americans care for that). The other is letting robots do ALL work while Americans enjoy a universal basic-income based on the total gross domestic product of US manufacturing. Any non-robotic jobs is extra income for those working them. But that's a tough social contract to sell since it goes against everything capitalism believes in.
Either way, the math limits what we can do. We're not as large as China or India; so either people start procreating or we pick which path we want to go on. But we can't simply lead in the financial sector and the manufacturing sector and the energy sector and the transportation sector and the arms sector and the technology sector and the agricultural sector and the natural resources sector and every other sector. The numbers just don't add up, unless we're willing to add the numbers.