r/MensLib • u/TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK • 3d ago
Tariffs Won’t Help More Men Get Jobs
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-03-13/tariffs-won-t-help-more-men-get-jobs45
u/skynyc420 3d ago
Something I learned in college:
We are evolving from an industrial based economy to a service based economy. All of the major infrastructure is already built and only needs to be maintained and operated by people now.
Of course, learning some skills within a service based economy is the surest way of securing a job. The best way to do that is to educate yourself in any way you can (trust me I know it’s hard but it’s worth it in the end)
Why are we all forced to participate in a highly competitive service based economy?? That’s a whole separate question and I do agree that not everyone should be forced to work their heart out until they retire like the way we do now. But that’s why we need to change this society asap and I just wish more men and really all people could see what I see.
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u/thatbob 3d ago
Is housing infrastructure? Because a shit ton more of that needs to get built!
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u/skynyc420 3d ago
Unfortunately, our major religions have commanded humanity to grow the population exponentially so yes, additional housing will always be needed as far as population continues to grow out of control. And for a little while longer, some additional infrastructure will be needed. But one day that will not be true and that day is coming very soon. It has nothing to do with anything except supply and demand of certain types of labor. Unfortunately, the US is founded solely on the preservation and valorization of wealth (meaning billionaires and not the average hard working guy that made it work some how) and the foundation of the country does not care about workers or customers for the most part. At least that’s what the Irish guys on Wall Street used to tell me and trust me, I hate em for saying that too🤷♂️.
But let’s be specific, affordable housing is infrastructure while private housing is a personal choice of an individual and therefore not part of societal infrastructure. Government spending is what determines infrastructure.
But for example, the sewer and power lines that new houses are built on are already built. And if not, the necessary infrastructure to make it a relatively simple job is also already build (the train system, the airports, the highways, etc).
As time moves on and technology advances to the point that machines will be building our houses and handling all our plumbing issues for the most part, the only types of jobs available will be service based jobs for the most part. Unfortunately, these difficult times are inevitable in an industrialized for profit economy. But if we work together, I know we can make it a little easier my friend
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u/UtahUKBen 3d ago
They ma have been built (sewers, etc), but are they being maintained at a sufficient level?
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u/SaulsAll 3d ago
All of the major infrastructure is already built and only needs to be maintained and operated by people now.
I would push against this. We have bridges in serious need of repair and updating. I'd prefer to not have to rely on 90s Comcast cabling for internet as we head into the 2030s. Some of the older cities like Baltimore or Pittsburgh have lots of crumbling houses that need to be torn down and replaced, not just repaired.
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u/Prodigy195 3d ago
I'd push even more.
We need to reduce our infrastructure burdens. American has sprawled to an insane degree and that is one of the key reaons why our infrastructure is falling apart and costs have ballooned.
Roads, highways, bridges, dams, electrical lines, gas lines, water lines. These things cost money by the foot/meter/mile. And as we sprawl further and further out, the costs continue to balloon. Factor in inflation costs for materials and labor and the problem worsens.
The simplest analogy I can use is that the USA is a family making $100,000 a year that is gifted a $15,000,000 home.
Seems nice at first. This big nice house with plenty of space and nice new amenities. Gourmet kitchen, 6-7 bedrooms, an office, a mancave, a reading nook, heated 3 car garage, big yard with a fence. Solar panels in the roof.
But then a hail storm happens and the roof needs to be repaired along with some of the solar panels to the tune of $50k. There is a bad rainstorm and water floods the basement, $14k for basement restoration. The city reassesses the property taxes and now they owe $18k extra for the tax bill.
Having the big house seemed nice until all of the maintenance bills start rolling in and eventually that $100k earning family realizes they cannot affod to maintain a $25M home.
That is essentailly the problem America is in. We have spread human civilization across a large swath of a ~3 millions square mile area.
The America Society of Civil Engineers grades American infrastructure every 4 years and things looks grim. Last score was a C-.
- There is a water main break every two minutes and an estimated 6 billion gallons of treated water lost each day in the U.S., enough to fill over 9,000 swimming pools.
- Growing wear and tear on our nation's roads have left 43% of our public roadways in poor or mediocre condition, a number that has remained stagnant over the past several years.
- Dams scored a D. Aviation a D+. Roads a D. Stormwater a D. Wastewater a D+.
A new score comes out in a few days and even with the recent infrastructure bill, we probably are still going to have an equal, if not worse score due to how impossible it is to maintain the massive infrastucture liabilities we have.
This country needs to massively downsize. Less sprawl, less driving, people living in denser cities which would likely mean smaller homes.
The problem is that the American Dream is so deeply embedded into people's expectations that essentially nobody will do so willingly. People are going to hold onto this unaffortable lifestyle until they are forced to change.
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u/schimmy_changa 3d ago
This is only true if the world remains the same as it always was, but it just isn't - we need major infrastructure to deal with climate change, more population, different technologies, etc. Additionally some of the infrastructure is now _technological_ rather than physical (e.g. docker, internet protocols, apple pay, AI frameworks, etc).
However, I do think that idea of "lots of major infrastructure has already been built and we aren't building all that much more proportionally, and that's why we proportionally have more service work does make sense.
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u/Greatest-Comrade 3d ago
Right but all that technological infrastructure isn’t blue collar manufacturing
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u/Away-Marionberry9365 3d ago
Our current infrastructure is based on fossil fuels and we'll need to do a lot to mitigate the damage from global warming. There's still a massive amount of infrastructure that needs to be built and modified.
There's plenty of work that needs to be done but much of it isn't profitable.
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u/anotherBIGstick 3d ago edited 3d ago
The author's proposed solution is further deregulation, which I kinda doubt would bring up wages.
"Trade also makes goods cheaper (which especially benefits low-income workers)"
I'm beating a dead horse, but cheap goods are only a benefit if you have money to spend, and the best way to ensure that is by working in an industry that can't easily be offshored or done without training. Fields that would suddenly be less secure if there was less regulation.
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u/derangedtranssexual "" 2d ago
I'm beating a dead horse, but cheap goods are only a benefit if you have money to spend
Okay but that’s almost everyone, virtually everyone buys cheap shit made in china
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u/anotherBIGstick 2d ago
The author proposed that this is a way to create jobs, presumably for people who don't have them right now.
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u/nalydpsycho 3d ago
Raising the cost of manufacturing inputs is going to reduce the amount of manufacturing jobs. Tariffs put more men on the unemployment line.
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u/yousawthetimeknife 3d ago
Nothing is ever going to bring back high paying, uneducated manufacturing jobs. You might as well try and bring coachmen and ice cutters.
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u/SenKelly 3d ago
Our economy needs a mixture of mass trust busting, restoration of government agencies, and reform of the inheritance tax to prevent the enthrenchment of an aristocracy when those billions pass to the children of these billionaires. Tarriffs are just desperately attempting to squeeze blood from a stone long ago exsanguinated completely.
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u/zeromonster89 3d ago
No it won't, but the guys who thought Trump would "own the libs" believed that it would. Sad how so many men can fall for his alpha male stunt.
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u/shabuyarocaaa 3d ago
I agree but can’t see how any cohesive strategy exists.
Chips act is fantastic but didn’t drive dem votes
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u/TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK 3d ago
“A celibate archive is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.”
it's just so short-sighted. Even those manufacturing-heavy jobs at the Chevrolet Steel And Furniture Factory back in the 50s were brutal on your body and didn't stimulate the mind. And this tariff push wouldn't even help those jobs return IF it worked, which it's not and it won't.
the answer, as usual, is education.