I don't work for animal shelter. When I went to take adopt one, that is what they told me. That is how I remember. Hey Mark Cuban, great that you made a point and proved it to yourself. Arguing with you just reduces IQ of the internet. I hope someday you finish college in STEM. You win.
Actually, global trade wars have been around for much longer then the decline of the middle class in the US. It's technology that's been reducing the need for lower grade cognitive jobs and thus impacting the middle class. It's only get worse from here as a lot of other occupations will be disrupted and it's gonna hurt. When I started on Wall Street, every MD had a secretary, while when I left the sell-side a few years ago, there was maybe two secretaries for the whole trading floor. I am sure the displaced secretaries would love to prohibit computers and go back to typewriters. Not to sound callous, but I have no pity for the supposed members of the middle class that could not adapt to the new economic order, caused by whatever disruptive forces. Factory workers that got displaced, off-white collar jobs like secretaries et al should have seen it coming and made the right changes. If you want to survive in the modern society, you better be ready to change.
There should be no pity for people who refuse to adopt but we gotta give them a fair chance. However, all open border does is, takes away chance of society to adopt. US is culturally hard working and innovative nation. US sent man to moon first, etc, etc. Capitalism was created to serve the society and not other ways around. If we let sections of society fall behind, in time there will be enough of them that Trump and Brexit will happen in a democracy. It is no coincidence that rust belt and farm belt came out and bulldozed the blue wall of PA, WI, and MI. From what it looks like right now 2020 will be no different. Look how divided the nation has become today. This is not very good for business. Hypothetically saying if the country does split into two nations based on coastal elites and rest of us what do you think social stability, dollar strength, market reaction will look like?
It's hard for me to say since technically I am a member of said coastal elite. In the short run it's going to be destabilizing, obviously. However, in the long run the coastal elites will emerge in a better shape when the fly-over freeloaders get off the wagon I don't know if the decline of the middle class can be fixed. Think of it, for as long as humans existed, we had only two economic strata in the society, "haves" and "have nots". The middle class as a mass phenomena is a recent invention, possibly very transitory. However, if the fix exists, it is not in spotty protectionism which stifles innovation and competition (the two key components of capitalism). If I had to guess what it would entail is an investment into education and lots of R&D.
Agree with lots of points. Except you didn't address the power of democracy. Trump, Brexit happened cause of democracy. Democracy has the power to throw capitalism out. So, to keep capitalism which serves only a few, they will have to figure out way to suppress votes. People did vote the coastal elites out this past election. In fact the people voted against increased promise of handouts. Smart capitalists will figure out way to serve the society as they hate instability. Infosys and TCS already promised to bring in more than 10,000 jobs to USA even at cost of their bottom-line, cheap labor and innovation. That is protectionism working without laws through democracy of Americans who elected a loud mouth to office. Like Peter Theil said globalization is so 2005.
If you want to know the future of Capitalism, then read Karl Marx’s economic theory. In his theory, he predicted that capitalism would fall from within! Here are some of the reasons he listed to support his economic prediction: 1. Inevitability of monopolies, which eliminate competition and gouge consumers and works. 2. Lack of centralized planning, which results in overproduction of some goods and underproduction of others, encouraging economic crises such as inflation, slumps, depressions. 3. Demands for labor-saving machinery, which force unemployment and a more hostile proletariat. 4. Employers will tend to maximize profits by reducing labor expenses, thus creating a situation where workers will not have enough income to buy the goods produced, creating the contradiction of causing profits to fall. 5. Control of the state by the wealthy, the effect of which is passage of laws favoring themselves. Now, the main reason that prevented his theory from becoming a reality so far, is the implementation of some of the social services laws by the wise! Like social security, unemployment services, Medicare, Medicaid and so forth. Now ask yourself, which party in the United States is working for the welfare of the masses and which one is working to service the corporations needs? By the way, I am a political scientist and not a communist!
A smart businessman does not care about serving the society, he cares about making money. When you are trading, do you care about "adding liquidity and reducing transaction costs" or you care about your P&L? Peter Theil wants to be close to the feeding through. Almost any true capitalist would say anything to get there (see my statement above), best exemplified by Musk's turnaround. Globalisation is just a corollary of one of the main economic principles - specialisation. Let's take a more local example. A multi-billion hedge fund decides to hire a portfolio manager specializing in volatility arbitrage. Would it make more sense for them to hire me (20 years experience and a track record) to hire you (just starting to develop a trading strategy)? If someone out there specializes in something (manufacturing, for example) it makes more sense to hire that entity then to support a struggling albeit a local one. PS. Buffet, apparently, agrees with me: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...nts-roadkill-who-lose-jobs-says-u-s-must-help
Jared Kushner and his family loves globalisation, it seems: http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/06/news/jared-kushner-nicole-family-event/ If it's good enuff for the Prez and his relatives, it's gotta be good for everyone.
As the OP of this thread I would like to thank the contributors for their interesting contributions so far and look forward to many more in the future.