Not_mikey

joined 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago

Full protectionism does cause problems with inflation and degrading the competitiveness of firms, but full neoliberal globalism leads to a race to the bottom on wages and working conditions.

The answer is somewhere in the middle, we shouldn't be putting blanket tariffs on a country or the entire world. But we also shouldn't turn away from possibly helpful protectionist policies.

Tarriffs can help in new and developing industries to make sure they aren't strangled in the crib by foreign competition. A large reason for the success of the development of south Korean and Taiwanese economies was due to initial protectionist policies . The tariffs have to be understood to be temporary though but they can help in getting an industry off the ground.

I'd argue electric vehicles are an emerging industry that will be very important if the world shifts to a greener economy. Letting China take over that market and dominate it would be detrimental to the strength of our economy long term.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Has anyone been able to sign up for loops lately?

I tried registering but never got an email to confirm my account. Is there a waitlist?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

One of the main supporters for this was the UAW. Real rich people don't care about this, if this hadn't passed they wouldve just sold there shares in American auto companies and invested in Chinese companies, or moved manufacturing to China for higher subsidies, lower labor costs and even bigger profits, or use that as a threat to lower wages here. Under globalism capital is free to move to wherever there is the most profit.

This isn't a rich vs poor situation, it's a worker vs consumer situation.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

On one hand this will slow the ev transition.

On the other car manufacturing is one of the few industries left in America with some union density and decent wages and having to compete with subsidized Chinese evs that are made with a fraction of the labor costs would destroy that industry.

Globalism hurts workers and helps consumers. One of the triumphs of neoliberalism is to get people to identify as consumers first and workers second.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Road rage exists, it is just less visible, especially if you're not involved. It usually won't be a car directly ramming into another, although that happens sometimes, it's going to manifest as one repeatedly cutting another off or one tailgating really close, which you probably won't notice if you're not involved but is still very dangerous. Meanwhile someone shouting or punching someone is very easy to notice on a metro car, especially since your attention is up for grabs whereas when your driving your attention is on keeping your lane, watching for your turn, maintaining your speed etc.

Yes being trapped in a confined space can trigger violence in some but in others it may discourage violence as there's no escape from the repercussions. Meanwhile if your in a car and side swipe someone you can just speed off and as long as someone doesn't catch your license plate your home free. Also cars can trap you in a confined space if your in traffic, which does trigger a lot of road rage.

I'll admit I only take the metro about once a week, mostly get around the city by walking and bus and I commute by my one wheel and commuter rail, haven't owned a car for almost all of my adult life. The main threat I face when in transit is not from crazy people on public transit, it's from cars when I'm walking or one wheeling. I think drivers normalize the danger of cars and sympathize with them, but once you spend most of your time outside the protection of one you can begin to realize how dangerous they are.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

The great salt lake doesn't connect to the ocean or any other shore and therefore is not a major shipping route. Also it may only be two more down than Ontario but it's an order of magnitude smaller.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Implying that the Democrats are now "the party of big business" is arguably true (and very boring)

While true in some scenarios, in anti-trust Lina khan's ftc has done significantly more than trump ever did. Biden keeping her over the protest of countless business execs and daily articles in the wall street journal on how she's ruining America shows some commitment to prosecuting big tech.

Meanwhile, trump's anti-trust moves were mostly based off petty issues he had with the ceos or the platforms having a "liberal bias". Now that every big tech ceo has fallen in line and given him $1 million for his inauguration I doubt we'll see much movement on that front.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (3 children)

It's system dependent but yeah, I'm not gonna argue that metro cars are always the most sanitary.

As for someone scaring you, I'd say that's a feature not a bug of the metro. It's not like there are less crazy or dangerous people driving then on the metro, it's just you don't see them. If someone's yelling slurs and nonsense on the metro you can hear / see that and change cars like you said. If they're doing that in a car there's no way for you to know about it and avoid them. Maybe you notice them driving eradically but your focused on so many other things it's easy for it to go under your radar.

Also on the metro that crazy person may have a weapon but on the road it's guaranteed that that person is in control of a vehicle that can kill dozens of people with a turn of a wheel or the press of a pedal.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Railway passenger: Too few deaths in 2022 to calculate odds

But every suburbanite i know says the metro is too dangerous and that you're likely to get stabbed by a methed up homeless man.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

Might actually be lower in the u.s. since no one's bicycling any way. Even if deaths per mile cycled is significantly higher in the u.s. , if the total miles cycled is low then deaths will be low.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago

Well apparently believing in climate change is political over here, and I don't think it's wrong to point to this as evidence that we need to make some serious changes.

 
 
view more: next ›