Australia Mourns the End of Its Car Manufacturing Industry
Another great story from NYT in a similar vein that does a great job (I think) of humanizing all of the people involved: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;10&#x2F;14&#x2F;us&#x2F;union-jobs-mexico-rexnord.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;10&#x2F;14&#x2F;us&#x2F;union-jobs-mexico-rexn...</a><p>This is a tough issue for me because I consider myself a liberal, and in <i>theory</i> I am OK with globalization but it obviously has negatively impacted many economies in similar ways.<p>I want to be pro-globalization but to me you really only have two (vastly simplified) options:<p>1. Be more isolationist or micromanage global trade to maintain your own industries even though they can&#x27;t compete globally.
2. Find a way to make globalization benefit everyone, not just the owners of companies who can cut costs and increase profits. This most likely means some kind of universal income and large education investment and vocational training built on top of the profits of globalization.<p>We appear to be moving towards #1 and I&#x27;m afraid we&#x27;ll all suffer as a result.<p>My biggest issue with globalization is that, while it makes sense in theory, in practice most of the &quot;efficiencies&quot; come from dirt cheap labor due to exchange rates, poor workers rights and working conditions, and lack of environmental regulations (among others). Not because other countries have developed <i>better</i> ways to make things better or faster, they can just abuse their workers in a way they can&#x27;t here. You would think we would all benefit in some ways even if we&#x27;re just consumers by cheaper goods, but are they really cheaper or cheap enough to offset the reduction in good jobs? Does anyone know of some good data-sources for the prices of consumer goods vs household income over time? My guess is our purchasing power has gone down in general for the middle-class.<p>I can see honestly how this issue has given rise to nationalism in America, I somehow hoped that people would see that isolationism is not the answer and we instead need to rethink our economic model. Somehow Americans have been sold (among many other things) that something like universal income is a handout. I&#x27;m afraid we&#x27;ll take the route that the UK is moving towards of being poorer overall and reducing globalization out of spite without it actually benefiting us.<p>I feel like as a liberal in America I live in a game of political jenga. Want to stop abortions? We can only do it in a way that doesn&#x27;t involve decent sex ed or contraceptives (which leads to <i>personal responsibility</i>). Want to prevent gun massacres? We can only do it in a way that doesn&#x27;t restrict access to guns at all and doesn&#x27;t cost any money (which leads to more <i>personal responsibility</i>). Want to help out those impacted by globalization or those who have never been on sound economic footing? We can only do that in ways that don&#x27;t involve <i>wealth redistribution</i> (which pretty much means <i>personal responsibility</i> of people to  despite the fact that that already happens in many ways (so we&#x27;re left with more <i>personal responsibility</i> and people like Shannon are responsible for a late-in-life pivot to a new job with anemic vocational assistance).<p>A lot of the people that have been hurt by globalization are the same people that support the party in our system that has taken most of the solutions to our problems totally of the table. We&#x27;re in a straightjacket and could get out any of 10 ways but those would involve tools, all of which are (claimed to be) morally&#x2F;philosophically unacceptable.<p>I know this was a rant but its been stewing since I read the first NYT article and this one just compounds it.