I think it's more that some view America under Obama as bailing out or helping other countries and people while America has it's own problems, and not showing dominance towards other nations because U.S.A. #1 and such. They don't want America to be an equal and helping other nations, they want America to be telling other nations what to do to fix themselves or just flat out ignoring them.
But yes, they also don't like the example of the EU with its open borders with other EU nations.
Nulla Tenaci Invia Est Via
There are a lot of ways in which globalization can be bad. One interesting way that we are feeling on the west coast is dirty energy consumption. We enjoy a concentration of wealth in the US, which drives consumerism, which drives Chinese industry, which drives Chinese energy consumption (which is a lot of coal), which is not tightly regulated, and the waste from that production blows across the Pacific and into California.
Another example is resource transfer - and that could be oil or food. Rich countries can drive up prices in poorer countries, creating a stark wealth divide in a remote place. There was a big stink about quinoa, for example, which suddenly became popular in the US. Since it isn't produced domestically, we got it from other, poorer places. That drove up prices on a staple food, making it unaffordable to people who relied on it while making people who produced it wealthy. The same effect has happened with other resources, like oil.
The area that probably upsets Trump's base is going to be labor transfer - the movement of jobs from expensive developed countries to less expensive, less developed countries. Things like textiles and manufacturing but even things like tech support and engineering get sent overseas where labor is cheaper. It creates a job problem domestically but also can victimize foreign persons where employment may be less regulated, creating artificial economic conditions which hurt local populations.
Sort of similarly, there is a tendency for wealth to get transferred out of developed countries into developing ones - when Dell can save money in the US by building a gigantic campus in India, that is not just lost tech support or engineering jobs, but land not sold domestically, taxes not generated domestically, contractors not employed domestically, etc. It's money from consumers that goes a) into the pockets of a few rich Americans, and b) overseas. It feels a bit rough.
This is all pretty myopic - specific things that are problematic. There are certainly arguments to counter them. But, no matter what, an issue with globalization is that the models to describe anything are infinitely complex and impossible to develop. Factoring all the conditions in one environment to create an economic model is difficult, trying to factor in all the environments is a whole other thing. It's unlikely anyone ever anticipated cheap TVs would cause pollution in San Francisco, but here we are.
Would specific things be simpler without globalization? Probably. Would things be better? Dunno that I'd go that far.
Last edited by thesameguy; August 5th, 2017 at 09:29 AM.
I suppose it goes to the same problem that (I believe mostly the right side) people have is the "black and white" (not race but matter of thinking) mentality to things:
Capitalism Good / Communism Bad
Isolationism Good / Globalism Bad
Conservatives Good / Liberals Bad
etc.
People just jumping to one side or another with no middle ground because that requires too much thinking
It's complicated, that's for sure.
I hate paying 4 dollars for a kilo of Hass avocados.
acket.
Aren't most people here at the opposite end?Originally Posted by MR2 Fan
Socialism good/capitalism bad
Globalism good/isolationism bad
Liberals good/conservatives bad
Who here can truly appreciate benefit of both sides and also not ignore the shortcomings of their preferred side?
Political polarization can only happen when we have extremists on both sides.
Now on a more serious note, avacados are really outrageously expensive! Who's fault is that?
Last edited by Crazed_Insanity; August 5th, 2017 at 01:45 PM.
All of this is correct.
My beef with people who seem to be "anti globalism" is that they don't see the disconnect between their own consumer choices and resulting globalism. They mostly likely are the ones complaining about immigration/ Messicans/ stealing our jobs etc, but ..., like the low cost of food we now have. Which is only possible because of the low cost of labor provided to immigrants.
They most likely shop at a place like Walmart, where most of the product not only comes from China or overseas, but Walmart has a dubious record of killing small locally owned stores most places it sets up shop. And paying subsistence wages, whereby someone who is working doesn't make enough money to make a living, and is still getting Section 8 and or food stamps/ EBT. This drains economies.
Whereas if you shop at the local mom and pop tire shop and spend $500 there, what profits are contained therein are going to pay someone locally for supplies or wages. And then pay someone else for other services etc.
This is why I avoid Walmart as much as possible, bank with a credit union, and buy food from mom and pop restaurants as much as possible.
Shop local. Think global.
Word.
I feel like the interesting discussion is really the long term. Globalization undoubtedly does two things: It moves wealth from place to place and it accelerates the consumption of resources. In my mind, both are terrible problems that nobody has rationalized dealing with. When very rich people can employ very poor people to get money from average people, it tends to slide average people down and poor and rich people up. The result, obviously, is really rich people getting obscenely rich and everyone else collecting near the bottom. At the same time, it gives rich people access to poor peoples' resources, accelerating their consumption while using it to feed the wealth equation. I dunno what happens in the long run, but it can't be good.
It continues until all the resources are in the hands of a few, and even basics like water are taxed/ processed.
Then the end if humanity begins as the poor start to cannibalise each other (not literally. I mean in competition for meagre jobs, meagre wages, etc) and a vicious circle ends wherein we return to pre industrial revolution type of living, while the wealthy live in manicured, gated, protected enclaves and travel with armed guards who have legal shoot to kill capability.
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