alt Hacker NewsNo, bringing the price of 50" 4k TVs down to $300 does not make up for lost jobs. That's an easy choice, which is why it was never presented to the American worker but rather foisted upon us by shareholders in pursuit of profit and a government content to look the other way.
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Hammershaft • today at 6:52 PM
Advanced manufacturing requires cheap global inputs.
Before tariffs, unemployments was ~3.5% and real wages were rising, and part of why wages have been rising is because the cost of goods like TVs have been falling.
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1. For the n-th time: manufacturing jobs are being lost to automation. Globally, not just in America. This is true in Asia as well.
Manufacturing is facing the same fate of agriculture: machines and robots will keep displacing people. Nothing is going to stop it.
2. There is no such world where we'll choose to do things less efficiently to artificially save few jobs. And it's not about your TV being 100$ more expensive, it is about everything you touch and see being considerably more expensive, with a cascade effect on the businesses that need the equipment.
3. Average Joe in US is as much a shareholder as some imaginary person you have in mind. And a company's duty is towards shareholders first, workers second.