Many of us will not.
this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2024
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For the last 40 years through free trade we’ve had a large population join the market from countries like China, Russia, India etc.
Free trade with China has given us cheap consumer goods but at the cost of our own manufacturing which suppressed wage growth and inflation for a long time. We hit the peak of this just before Covid and we are now feeling the after affects.
China’s dramatically aging population along with geopolitical instability means that the logistics and manufacturing capacity that existed overseas for 20 years Is now failing. The US forced to reshore or nearshore (Mexico) much of its manufacturing capacity. Basically if we want to continue to have stuff we need to find somewhere else to make it besides China. This isn’t a cheap process and it won’t be as efficient as the old system.
Russia’s war with Ukraine has huge implications on resources and energy. Russia exports a lot of raw materials, fertilizer products, food, energy and aluminum. Taking them offline has affected international trade and has many many markets.
Our institutions that support labor have also withered over the last 40 years. Labor unions don’t have the sway they used too and politicians have ignored their needs for decades. Big business will not just give wage increases much like in the 20s and 30s Labor will need to grow and become more combative than it currently is to see any improvements.
In short the world order that we all grew up in is breaking down and changing. It will be at least a decade before these changes finish shaking out and we see solutions to the problems we are facing fully materialize.
Humans have a great capacity to adapt. Consider people around the world who have adapted to even worse circumstances.
spoiler
unionize
First you look at other countries around the world. Then you see that lots of people somehow eke out OK livings despite horrible shit in government. So maybe you can too.
That's not to say the horrible things to come are acceptable. Rather, you're probably more capable than you believe. Believe in examples of billions around the globe.
This is a circumstance born, in no small part, of the idea that manual labor and menial labor is meaningless and has no real value.
Our economy has been sold from beneath us, and the overall cultural ideologies result in most people avoiding these things. But it is the only thing that is actual production - the rest of the economy is all efficiencies or expenditure.
Slowly, the wealth has slipped away, and now it's becoming apparent to people, and they don't know who to blame.
Find or make an enclave and survive together.
It is about politics. You need to organise yourselves better into unions. Then, you strike until you get what you deserve.
Why does Denmark and the rest of the Nordic countries have so high quality of living and happy people? Cause the people realized that you need to work together to get what you want. You need to have solidarity with your other workers to push for better compensation and work environments.
Do this, or you're doomed.
Absolutely 100% this.
To be totally blunt, this doesn't need political backing. This requires people collectively coming together, forming unions with single-focus, and pushing for an increase in pay to align with the cost of living. Hell, if anything it's better if Trump and his lackies oppose this, because you ultimately have the power to cripple these businesses via strikes, forming your own cooperatives off the back of your soon-to-be previous employers, or simply signalling to businesses that if they cannot afford to pay people enough money they shouldn't be in business.
Push for gradual increase year-on-year until pay is aligned. If this is missed, everyone walks. Push for the removal of limited sick pay, and for 25+ days minimum vacation time a year. Leave it at that, and you've got terms that 90% of workers will agree to. Can't get a single company to agree? Create a professional body for your line of work and promote it as the place to be for those in your field. Push for accreditation for roles, and shun those that avoid it.
I’ve anecdotally heard that the reason Nordic countries rank high on happiness is because they have a relatively high level of cultural homogeneity, or similar ideals circulating around with most people. This is in contrast to a place like the US that has a relatively high variety of ideologies and cultures. In other words it’s easier to get along if we all generally agree. What are your thoughts on this?
Every other time I've encountered this argument, it's been an argument in favor of racism and xenophobia, often a Nazbol argument like "socialism only works if no diversity." It's my instinct to refuse it.
But I couldn't deny that, American conservatives and liberals + leftists, on the mental level, live in different realities, with not only different core values and worries, but different ideas of what is actually happening (and no, I actively believe American leftists do not live in a fundamentally different reality from American liberals the way conservatives do from liberals + leftists.)
True, but misleading.
Yes, if you got rid of all the Nazis in America, then Americans would be happier. On the other hand, if everyone in a country, say, Germany, agreed on establishing a fascist dictatorship, then Germans would be unhappy.
Norwegians aren't just happy because they all agree. They're happy because they agree, and they're left wing. Agreement is important, but only if it's agreement on people's rights and decency.
Yea definitely don't disagree with that. I think that is a factor too. But I think it also kind of goes hand in hand. Do you have similar ideas because you organized and kind of aligned your ideas, or did you organize because your ideas are similar and you easily agreed to organize? It's kind of a chicken and egg thing.
I've also often thought that countries like the US are just too big. There's too many people to take into consideration. A country like Denmark with ~6 million people is much easier to keep track of and the governance and politics is closer to reality.
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Americans need to budget better and get used to some sacrifices. If you can't ride the waves, you're bound to fall off.
This is a very insensitive and honestly silly comment to make. What makes you think people aren't budgeting? They would have to in order to survive in the world that we live in now but there are major costs that we can't control for example rising housing and rent. Even if we stopped dining out every single day forever, and never got sodas or drinks or anything like that, it would still be a struggle to survive because the price of groceries keeps going up due to corporate greed, it has absolutely nothing to do with people not budgeting. When you budget, and things keep rising in that budget, that's a huge issue
For example, if I budgeted 100% of my income out as 30% groceries, 70% savings, from the year 2005 to 2024, The percentage for groceries would dramatically increase. It would go 30% groceries in 2005, 45% groceries in 2015, 57% groceries in 2024. As you can see, in this simple example, I'm not buying more groceries or changing my investment or budget. All I'm buying is groceries, and the cost of groceries keeps rising infinitely without my pay rising. This is the problem with the idea that budgeting can help you.
Is not about politics
It’s all about politics. Just not about the 24/7 clown show that passes for politics in the US.
It’s about who gets what, how the spoils are divided. It’s obvious how the deck is stacked against ordinary people: the middle class is being bled dry and the hoarder class is taking off with all of it.
What’s extraordinary is that that somehow passes for ‘natural’ and ‘not about politics’.
Well capitalism is based on the horrible unfeeling cruelty of nature, that we originally created human society to escape.
So that's why it feels natural. It's the unfair unfeeling system of nature that society is not supposed to be
Trees actually cooperate and share resources.
This horrible cruelty shouldn't be accepted as natural.
Not bees. Bees cooperate with each other, nurture their young, operate according to democracy, take nectar freely given by plants, and only use their stingers for self defence.
Fun fact: old scientists believed the queen controlled the hive for purely political reasons. They wanted evidence in nature for the existence of monarchy. They were wrong. Bees are communists and monarchy doesn't exist in nature. Neither does capitalism. No animal profits purely from owning something, they all have to put in work to get what they need to live.
The america empire is following in the exact same footsteps of the Roman empire. If you fail to learn from history then history will repeat itself. The great American empire will fall and there will be nothing u can do about it no matter how hard u try.
"Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
— Dylan Thomas
The greatest trick Yahweh ever pulled was convincing people that "light" can be a euphemism for metaphysical goodness.
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Honestly, the ones who survive well are the ones who build communities that take care of each other: Sharing meals, sharing gardens, sharing skills and labor, sharing rides, sharing emotions and stories, etc.
Capitalism was always pushing the US towards a gigantic class divide, and Boomers and Gen X carried that torch at the expense of their descendants' future. Communities of support are something that will have helped regardless of who is carrying what ideology and regardless of who is in charge, and they thrive in adversity.
So if you're looking for advice, build your local communities. Strengthen your bonds with your neighbors. Participate in local governance.
Gen x is in the same boat as millenials, they just had a tiny bit more of a chance still.
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Beautiful. In fact, under royalty, people used to be killed with things like the Breaking Wheel and being boiled alive, which makes the Guillotine a far more humane punishment. I'm tempted, though, to say that "nothing ever happens" and assume the U.S. will proceed as normal.
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Learn how to live in poverty and go unnoticed, because no grand and noble revolution is coming
Revolutions are never grand and noble.
(But some history books have been written by the survivors)
buying a house is simply out of reach unless you have dual income
Not in all areas of the United States. Houses routinely sell for under $200k in my city. There's also many for under $100k.
Say city.
I haven't checked since covid, but Philadelphia usually has at least a handful for under 100k and a load under 200k.
Granted they aren't in great sections of the city and nearly all are row homes with existing issues.
How's the job market?
I have absolutely no idea how to answer that question in any meaningful way.
I was struggling to find the right way to phrase the question, and I failed. I guess what I really wanted to know was: for a typical working class person, is a house at that price within reach? Or if you move there for the cheap houses and get a job, do you end up still barely able to afford the payments?
Check out much of the Midwest. Check out Detroit.
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You get milked by the big corpos. Money flows from the poor to the rich.
And as long as you have only these two extreme right wing parties, there is nobody who would change it.
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