Wanting to get the old factory jobs back

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A lot of Americans want the old factory jobs to come back: They want to be able to make 50-60,000 dollars a year on a high school education. They seem to miss the good old days, when if you wanted to make it, all you had to do was move west and till land; you didn't have to go to school or have specialized knowledge, you didn't have to compete with others, or anything. You just needed to work hard.

Unfortunately, this is much less feasible today. There isn't much land you can just go till, and besides why would you want to move somewhere without modern amenities? There isn't much factory work left; the jobs have all gone to China or some such other. Now if you want to earn a decent living, you've gotta go to tertiary education, you gotta go to technical school or college. You have to go learn before you can go work.

Now a lot of people are mad because they don't want to or can't afford to go to school, and they want the government to put up massive tariffs and other import restrictions so they can get the jobs their parents and grandparents had. That this will cause a massive price increase here for consumers doesn't bother them. They want what they want and they want it now. And if they can't get it on their own, they want to get the government to take it for them.

But I say to them: You guys need to take personal responsibility for your own situation, and not shove these massively higher costs on the rest of us. We took care of our own situations, we went to school, and got good jobs (and paid into Social Security in case we get disabled, etc.). Why can't you guys?

In fact, I would like to see the old factory jobs come back.

Here's why:

1) Not everybody is intelligent enough or can afford to go to college ... People should not be cut off from the job market because of it, but should be given an opportunity to prove themselves and work their way up based on merit. There are different talents, different abilities ... not everybody learns in the same way, and not all talents are best developed in a school setting or through book-learning (or nowadays, online). WP is an autism forum, you'd think we would agree on making it easier for those of us on the spectrum to get a good job regardless of our level of education.

2) Quality. I'm older than you are, beneficii. I used to absolutely love going clothes shopping in pretty much any store or shopping mall. There were always cool things to buy, at a decent price, and often on sale. Do you remember those days? Back when clothing was made in America, and/or at least in a wide variety of countries, rather than almost exclusively made in China. More choices meant a great selection when it came to quality and price point.

Nowadays, I go out clothes shopping ... and more than once, have come home frustrated, buying nothing ... because the clothing is now made in China and the quality is crap ... the threads are already coming loose, the design is misshapen, the clothes don't fit properly, the material is so cheap you can sometimes see through it ... and guess what? The price they want to charge is too high, because what good is buying something that's only going to fall apart right away and need to be replaced? That's a hidden cost, and paying over and over again is when the cost becomes massive.

3) Factory jobs produce jobs for people of all education levels. I should know. I'm a technical writer who attended a university, and have seen over the years what happens to my job as well as to the jobs of the guys on the factory floor when the manufacturing moves to Mexico. It stinks for everybody involved, except for the CEO and a few of his people at the very top of the company, and the stock holders.

4) The good that will come from putting people to work or back to work in factories will outweigh the bad from the tariffs and/or trade restrictions. Unemployed people who want to work and those on welfare who would work if they had the opportunity but who do not have any job opportunities without factory jobs, impose higher costs on the workers who pay for the benefits received by the unemployed and those on welfare. (Note: I of course believe that those who truly need and deserve disability or other benefits should receive them.)

There are plenty of people who would love to take personal responsibility for themselves and their own situation ... so why don't they? A big part of it is, lack of jobs.

Bring back the factories, and you'll bring back the jobs.

Do average factory workers really make 50-60 thousand dollars a year? Or is their salary really just something above minimum wage? Of course corporations don't even want to pay minimum wage, when they can pay third world workers considerably less.

Edit: I looked it up and read:

"According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, factory workers involved in assembly and fabrication make an average of $28,580 per year. This breaks down to approximately $13.74 per hour."

https://www.reference.com/business-fina ... 56c90fcf1c

I don't think a policy of, the only jobs that should exist in America should be ones requiring a college diploma, is feasible.

Plus as it is these days, even college graduates are having a hard time finding jobs:

https://www.google.com/search?q=college ... 4LgEikYEyk

The reality is, if these factory jobs came back, it would likely be a bad thing. These jobs were outsourced because it became cheaper to run factories overseas than in the United States, and American consumers want low prices, and companies want high profit. If the jobs returned, the implication would likely be that the economies of the U.S. and current third world countries where these factories are now based, have switched, and Americans would be paid 3rd world wages in these jobs, while the products are sold overseas for more money.

We cannot turn back the clock, unfortunately, to a time when the US was the only modernized, high capacity, economic powerhouse of production, and China and India were still peasant societies with stagnant economies. What were once third world countries are developing rapidly, and are beginning to surpass the U.S. on many fronts.

The reality is, the people in the towns and cities of the U.S. have to learn how to compete in an economy where the U.S. isn't the only big fish in the ocean anymore.

I'm confused by how the left fought for the minimum wage being raised to $15 per hour, but are against jobs being brought back to America.

I don't remember the actual figures, but I read someplace something like it used to be that a CEO made like 30% more, but now it's like they make 90% more. I think the problem is all the CEO's want to be Bill Gates and everyone else can go eat out of a dumpster as far as they're concerned.

But you believe the government should pay for your medical bills? The "I got mine" attitude can be applied many different ways and I don't think you'd support the great majority of it.

This idea that this is a global meritocracy couldn't be more false, the elite have moved jobs off shore to slave states and have become even more richer as the classes become even more stratified. You didn't 'take care of your own situation' by going to school unless you've paid off all your loans, the federal government essentially has nationalized the student loan industry which are guaranteed and undischargable in bankruptcy.

'We cannot turn back' but there is nothing to turn forward too. Our livelihoods are evaporating before our very eyes and soon enough even those that thought of themselves of meritorious and immune to forces of automation & globalism will feel it. We are entering a very unstable period of time and the US and Western Civilization needs to decide if it will stand up for its own interests or if it will go quietly in the night as we are all swept away. Tariffs work, our industries should be protected and the might of US should be used to advance the interests of the American people. We can be a prosperous nation but it is a zero-sum game, if people want to know why things have stagnated in this country for the last 40+ years all you have to do is look at the massive build up of wealth in the east.

If public education can not produce adults capable of working in a modern economy then there shouldn't even be public education, what is the point? Just to social engineer and indoctrinate? It's a joke what education is in this country and the biggest scam in history is how we've enslaved generations of people in debt for mostly worthless pieces of paper to do a lot of the same jobs their parents & grandparents did with no degree at all and in fact a lot of them didn't even have a high school diploma let alone a college one. Maybe people too stupid or too poor to educate their own kids should take responsibility for their own predicaments, see how ridiculous that sounds? Why should those that didn't save for retirement on their be bailed out by the rest of the American people? Why should the young pay for the old when they are so much more prosperous?

Prices should rise accordingly and rampant consumerism especially of foreign goods should be discouraged, saving and investing is what we need for our people to be prosperous not the cult of hedonism. The prices on goods can only rise so much, these CEOs are making billions so perhaps they need to sacrifice and if they can't then some other competition should take their market share. I believe that a lot of trustbusting should happened, there is such a concentration and consolidation of the wealth in this country to just a handful multinational corporations which are monopolies. If the big corporate farms can't survive without illegal labor then they should go out of business and sell the land to people who will utilize it legally.

Things will get A LOT worse if things don't change, you want those factory jobs back trust me. Idleness is a recipe suffering.

They will still need some who is really smart to fix the robots. And maybe turn them off so they don't take over the world.

My grandfather moved his family from England in 1957 to work at the General Motors plant in St. Catharines, Ontario (Where I grew up.) Back in the 80's you could earn $60,000 a year working there. The unions were so strong, they kept pushing the wages higher. There was no way they could be sustained.
There just isn't enough work for unskilled people to do. Robots for manual labor, computers for self service. There is nothing to replace these jobs. The only thing I can see working is the guaranteed universal income. Otherwise there will be a large percentage of the population with too much time and anger.

People live on nostalgia and unfortunately most of "bringing back jobs" isn't realistic.

The USA (and rest of world) can't rely on big oil forever. But Republicans and others refuse to accept that, so they will keep doing anything they can to slow down wind, solar (and so on) from being decent. Those ARE the future- even if stubborn old rich elite refuse to think so. They will see the money in it one day and then wreck it, I can just bet.

As for factory jobs- most are things of the past or overseas for super cheap. If some came back- I highly doubt most people would take the jobs. Many many people in USA turn their noses up at labor, so the factory jobs would go to illegals (just like how dishwashing, fast food, janitoral, etc) has gone to them.

I also want to point out- people think unskilled jobs aren't easy to find, but if you actually look.. there's plenty of stuff. I do realize people with any sort of disability (physical or mental- from being unable to walk right, to having social issues due to autism, and everything else) are at a disadvantage. There isn't programs to help in every area, which is a big reason people just take their benefits and don't do much. It's not right and people get called "lazy". But realistically- people can't just move somewhere else just to get a program that might or might not help them.

As for learning- there is plenty of free courses online! Many colleges have free and cheap courses- many that go towards degrees, if you look hard enough. Who knows what the future holds for this type of stuff, because the person in charge of education is an ignorant person that paid to get her job. Sickening.

All in all- I think people need to try harder at times, as well as be more realistic and get a crappy job at some point.. rather than expect things to be easy, things handed to them or what not. I know several people (some with autism and some without) that refuse to do certain work- fast food and retail due to the wages, as well as "Oh I can find something else" mindset. They haven't found something else and they are literally just waiting for something to fall in their lap I guess! Straight out of high school or college.. you aren't always guaranteed a great job- if people realized this more, then I strongly feel a majority of them would suck it up and take some random job while they find something better.

I know some of this comes off as harsh, but I'm not trying to offend.. just my viewpoint on these things.

Trump is fighting a previous battle. In the third world as the robots and computers are eventually going to take most of the jobs the slave laborers are doing. A large part of the population everywhere will not be capable of doing the remaining jobs.

And us baby boomers are becoming or will become geriatric

There will not be enough people left to pay taxes for guaranteed income and benefits, then what?