The counter argument is that if we didn't lock them into artificially propped up manual labor jobs, they would be more able to seek education, take risks on entrepreneurship, or otherwise put their time to more productive uses.
How long does it take to ramp up production domestically to get to a point where the prices would drop back down again? Tariffs have the effect of immediate price increase before the market has a chance to recover by expanding production. Wouldn't a gradually increasing tariff, say over a 10 year period encourage manufacturers to get the ball rolling before their businesses get badly hurt?
No, it would just make manufacturers wait longer to ramp up production. Because no one does anything unless it is out of necessity.
That assumes they can get to the required levels of production with current facilities. Where the problem I see comes in is that facilities would have to expand in order to meet new demand, which would take time. If these tariffs are just a threat to get people to come to the table to renegotiate deals then there is no reason to expand facilities since the demand for domestic steel will come back down once the tariffs stabilize. Or companies will have expanded facilities but not enough demand to justify them. Also, we aren’t going to start exporting significant amounts of steel so the amount of manufacturing jobs created by an increase in steel demand is less than the overall impact of the increased steel prices for all the various industries that use steel for their products. Just the way I see it.
I was just looking at Fox News and I saw another article talking about how bad it is in California, which I’ve always found to be weird. There’s a bunch of stuff I don’t love about the state, but I’ve never once thought “let me get the hell out of here and move to Texas”. I know my politics generally align with the image of California, but plenty of people who are from Orange County and other less liberal areas have no intention of going anywhere either. Is the image outside of California that people don’t really want to live here? Not sure if this is the exact thread for it but the articles that spurred this always tend to be politically driven so seemed like the best place. It just seems like California is the place used as a target for “right wing” talking points and the overall consensus I see is “yup, that’s us. What about it?” But I don’t know how much of that is living in a bit of a bubble.
Conservatives despise California. It's hilarious to watch them whine about the left "becoming mean" in the last few years when they've been actively wishing for an earthquake to wipe the state out for thirty years.
The big cities in California seem like great places to live IF you can afford them. It is the smaller cities like Stockton and Modesto that have a less than idyllic image, at least to me.
Conservatives and Liberals have been doing this to each other, it's not one-way. The talk of fly over states, bitter clingers, deplorables and in reverse the land of fruits and nuts, communists, etc. California is a nice place; it's not much different than anywhere else other than the fact it is expensive to live out there. So, I go and visit every so often. Love that wine country up North, Socal is not my thing.
Most of the people who leave California do so because the cost of living (driven primarily by the cost of housing) is too high, which is ultimately a consequence of policies that aren't so much liberal or conservative as they are designed to protect existing homeowners/renters at the expense of everyone else (which now ironically includes said homeowners/renters' children).
It's actually becoming a big problem in Texas, people from California moving here. I say in all seriousness that you can get your average joe Texan equally pissed if you tell him the government wants to take away his guns, or if you tell him that his city is being invaded by people from California. What they are figuring out is, they're selling their tiny homes or lofts, then buying a large house on like an acre of land with cash in hand and still have enough left over to put in the bank or spend frivously. The cost of living here is dirt cheap (relative to most other major areas), land is cheap, gas is insanely cheap, and the economy is stable. Even during the last great recession or whatever y'all called it, we didn't feel anything. Sure, you might not make as much, but what you do make, goes a lot further. Plus, aside from an occasional Harvey fucking up Houston population that hadn't learned its lesson from Allison, we largely do not have natural disasters. Unless you consider ted cruz a natural disaster, and there is an argument for that. The problem arises when the people move here faster than our cities can build out their infrastructure to accomodate them. That's where the problem with the Californians come in. And Floridians, who are moving here in equal numbers for the same reasons. And New Englanders, who are also moving here for the same reasons plus fuck the cold.
So, totally anecdotal: My experience: I am from the south but married someone from California whose entire large family still lives out there. He left because it was impossible to afford to live there and pursue higher education, even while working multiple jobs. So he joined the military to expand his opportunities. We visit periodically, and between that and when my sister lived in Northern CA, I think I have visited maybe 5 times. The cost of living is in fact almost insurmountable. I thought that we were going to be getting a semi cheap vacation after living in Hawaii when we came back for a couple of weeks to visit, and basic neccesities were about the same as Hawaii which has one of the highest cost of living in the US.. Chicken breast was $8 a pound and we were shopping at the Stater Bros. And I know that when my sister sold her house right before the bubble burst the last time, she made an arm a leg and was able to trade up from a two bedroom one bath on a zero lot to a huge 4k square feet custom built home butting up against a state park in Texas. With cash left over. The people I know who live in CA would never dream of living anywhere else. Other states are worth visiting but they find it strange how they do things there. I think part of that stems from the fact that California is an enormous state with a huge population and significant GDP compared to the whole entire day of the country. There's definitely a distinct culture and pace there. We had the opportunity to meet up with some strangers while we were there the last time. These people were young Mexican Americans and talking to them was very eye-opening. California is such an entity by itself that a lot of the people who were born and raised there have really no idea what's happening in other parts of the country. These young people I spoke to didn't even know that weed was illegal in other states, like the one I'm from. The word "gun" was literally frightening to them. Then, there are the California types that are a wealthier and affluent, and they love to virtue signal like crazy. It's almost like they have a higher position because they are from California and and are inherently more correct about certain things. I can definitely empathize with a lot of their positions, and I'm far from ultra-conservative, but some of their attitudes are downright snobbish and often times dismissive of the people they are speaking to or about. I think that attitude is what rubs people from other areas the wrong way. A lot of the insults go both ways, like the fruit and nuts comment, or Fly Over States comment. The problem is that the animosity between groups has increased a lot. Those small seeming phrases still exist but so do other ones and they are nasty and they are getting worse. California is a super cool place. There are gorgeous views all around and there are some really cool people there. However, I don't see us ever being able to afford to live there. Besides that, the thing that really weirded me out about Southern California different experience in Northern California) that when you get up on a crest of a hill you can see for miles in every direction and all of it has been developed. There are buildings and houses for miles and miles in every single direction. I'm used to having centers of populations with rural woodsy areas in between so it was almost kind of anxiety inducing to see all that crap around me constantly.
I absolutely loved Northern California. The natural beauty really distracts from all the fake people that infest the state.
The out of control housing costs are really only in Austin, and a little bit in Houston. Because the tech industry has invaded Austin, the cost of living has risen substantially. Houston is known for being less expensive but since the word got out, people are moving here en masse. So we are sitting in a house on a 1/4 acre which you really can't get in new construction anymore and just waiting for our house value to rise. But its true, I have heard people talk derisively about how "California is taking over Austin". Austin is a cool little place with nice outdoor stuff and some cute girls peppered throughout, but its getting to the point where a 1,000 sq foot teardown will cost you $350k.
The cost of everything is high in CA compared to elsewhere, what is the reason for that? They grow everything there, how can you be paying more? The one thing that boggled my mind when I was out there is the number of ridiculous taxes that you don't see elsewhere - a health or healthy eating tax https://www.budgettravel.com/article/san-francisco-decoding-the-healthy-surcharge_11118 I understand the underlying concept in this case and it seems like it is a good idea on it's face until you actually have to pay for it. Is that the driving force causing blue states to have migration issues to red states? All these ideas sound great but people don't want to pay for them, they want someone else to pay for them?
The taxes are higher than most places, but that's more a thorn in the side than anything. The gaping chest wound is the cost of housing. You could asses literally zero state taxes on my entire income and I'd still only be able to afford a hovel in CA, or a mansion in Oklahoma.
All these people migrating from blue states to red states, are going to keep voting blue, watch their red state they moved to turn purple then blue, then wonder why all the sudden they now hate their new, formerly red state they moved to in order to get away from their blue state. What is the saying? Something about how you are born a republican, go to school and become a democrat, then get old and become republican again?
More likely they're going to move to where it's cheap, buy property, watch its value go up as more people move in, see development increase to deal with it, start voting to curtail development to "preserve the character" of their property values, generate a housing crisis, and then not care that they have created for the next generation the same problem that was created for them by the last in their place of origin. A tale as old as time.
We have different definitions of the same place apparently. Honestly I don’t know where some of the cost of living numbers are coming from. Yeah housing is outrageously expensive no doubt about it. Income taxes are high and for high earners the new tax bill made that go up a bit from what I understand because of the state deduction cap. Groceries I think are on par Milk is like $2.60 a gallon Chicken is $2/pound at grocery stores in downtown SF and LA Gas is like $3.25 right now I don’t think those numbers are way out of line from other places. Yeah you can find places where it’s super expensive for those things but I also just think you’re dumb if you go there unless you’re just visiting and don’t want to go trough the hassle of finding a better options. And honestly I don’t see how republican policies would help the current housing crisis. The biggest issue is the need for affordable housing in and around LA and SF and not sure what policy supported by republicans would resolve that. Are there ones that I’m missing that would “fix” the problems here.