“In essence, that’s people in society feeling like one group has weathered or even done better under this crisis than the others, and there is no movement in politics that's defending the interests of people like them."
Here is his prescription for fixing the plight of those who feel as if they are being left behind:
"To save capitalism for future generations, the potential 2024 presidential candidate is calling for a structural overhaul of the economy, including a national industrial policy that incentivizes the creation of manufacturing jobs and requires more products to be made in the United States."
As Brad Pitt (doing Dr. Antony Fauci on SNL) said, "a couple of things":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW56CL0pk0g
What will the incentives be to enable manufacturing to return or begin here? Probably tax breaks. That has proven to trickle down with great alacrity to the pockets of the workers (see past 40 years of evidence of improved conditions for the middle and lower classes).
Or will the revived home based industries pay living wages with medical and retirement benefits as was once the case, and the reason why that middle chunk of workers lived financially secure lives? (Did the now quashed unions have anything to do with the improved plight of those workers?)
If companies do the above how will the math work now as opposed to why it stopped working? Again such wages will be higher than in less developed countries. That incentivizes consumers to seek cheaper imports, which leads to reduced market for more costly American made goods which ......... maybe this experiment has already been thoroughly tested.
Perhaps we should examine the current proportion of corporate expenses paid to the managerial staff (be sure to include perks and stock options) added to dividends paid as a proportion of all expenses. Is this different from when the math worked better? Will the proposed incentives fix the math?
And on to the assertion there is no movement in politics that's defending the interests of people like them. While the Democratic party is not a movement per se, it is clear that party's demands of Covid-19 stimulus were focused on saving jobs and lives rather than a no stipulations included hand out to the current dysfunctional corporate hegemony.
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| I don't feel like I am getting anywhere. |
More of the current flavor of capitalism is not a solution to problems created by that flavor. We elect folks working for the group that holds all the cards, because the political/corporate/legal system as currently structured has a built in handicap. An example of this is the effective neutering of the movement defending the interests of people like them (aka unions).
Also, I have to say: a Republican bemoaning the plight of average folks who are not represented politically is rich.