Reply to post: RE: "lower middle class and working class people..."

Tech jocks tell Trump: Tariff tiff with China will not achieve what you think it will achieve

Palpy

RE: "lower middle class and working class people..."

"...have been taking it in the shorts economically for a long time."

Agreed.

However, the Orange One is not addressing that problem by imposing tariffs. He's just screwing Americans from a different angle.

Here's something: I'm on a fixed income (comfortable, but watching my purchases a bit). Back in May, I bought a low-end drafting table. Made in China, $127 on Amazon. Now, post-tariff, it sells for $150.

How is making American consumers pay a large (percentage-wise) additional tax on goods from China helping low- and middle-class Americans?

How does the trade war -- the retaliatory tariffs imposed by China -- help American companies? Don't they shrink the American market share by making Chinese consumers prefer non-American products?

Yep, the lower and middle wage earners in America have been taking it in the shorts. For a long time. You can blame low wages in China or Malaysia or Mexico. But an American enterprise makes $XXX K per year. Out of that, the workers get wages. Out of that, the stockholders get profits. Out of that, the company officers -- CEO etc -- get salaries and bonuses.

Obviously, most CEO and company officer salaries have risen astronomically over the last decades. Corporate profits (as a share of national income) have just about doubled since 1992, and stand near a record high.

Workers' wages have not risen astronomically. Workers' wages have not tracked profits.

Workers are taking it in the shorts largely because the top tier take more and more of the money. Trickle-down economics in America means the workers get pissed on.

The solution is to legislate closer management of capitalism. Minimum-wage reform, returning to a 50% tax on the highest brackets, nationalized health insurance, etc.

It won't happen. The political system in the US is run by the wealthy. (It was designed that way from the beginning, incidentally; the period from the 1940s through the 1960s was an aberration.)

I saw a bumper sticker a few days ago that put it succinctly. It read, "Eat the rich."

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon