Searching for a new strategy

[Axulus]

This post brings up some good points

We don’t have answers for these communities. Rural and semi-rural economic development is hard. Those regions have received only negative shocks for decades; the positive shocks have accrued to the urban regions. Of course, Trump doesn’t have any answers either. But he at least pretends to care.

Just pretending to care is important. At a minimum, the electoral map makes it important.

These issues apply to more than rural and semi-rural areas. Trump’s message – that firms need to consider something more than bottom line – resonates in middle and upper-middle class households as well. They know that their grip on their economic life is tenuous, that they are the future “low-skilled” workers. And they know they will be thrown under the bus for the greater good just like “low-skilled” workers before them.

The dry statistics on trade aren’t working to counter Trump. They make for good policy at one level and terrible policy (and politics) at another. The aggregate gains are irrelevant to someone suffering a personal loss. Critics need to find an effective response to Trump. I don’t think we have it yet. And here is the hardest part: My sense is that Democrats will respond by offering a bigger safety net. But people don’t want a welfare check. They want a job. And this is what Trump, wrongly or rightly, offers.

http://economistsview.typepad.com/timduy/2016/12/desperately-searching-for-a-new-stretegy.html

 

[bilby]

If rural people want jobs, then they (like the vast majority of their predecessors) need to move to the cities.

Agriculture is now big, mechanised business. A handful of farmers can produce all the produce; and modern transportation systems mean that they don't need local support services - these can be more efficiently provided by a small number of centralised locations (ie Cities), rather than a large number of small towns.

It's over. The rural way of life is incompatible with a wealthy industrial or post-industrial economy. And the writing has been on the wall for more than two centuries.

Nobody's going to give rural people jobs. There's almost nothing they are needed for that can't be done better by people in cities. Their jobs have gone the way of gas-lamp lighting, whaling, and telephone switchboard operation.

It's about to get a lot worse (again; it's been doing that every few years for two centuries). The largest employer of rural dwellers is in driving trucks. And in the next decade or so, trucks will be driving themselves.

Time to move to the city.

 

[rousseau]

If rural people want jobs, then they (like the vast majority of their predecessors) need to move to the cities.

Agriculture is now big, mechanised business. A handful of farmers can produce all the produce; and modern transportation systems mean that they don't need local support services - these can be more efficiently provided by a small number of centralised locations (ie Cities), rather than a large number of small towns.

It's over. The rural way of life is incompatible with a wealthy industrial or post-industrial economy. And the writing has been on the wall for more than two centuries.

Nobody's going to give rural people jobs. There's almost nothing they are needed for that can't be done better by people in cities. Their jobs have gone the way of gas-lamp lighting, whaling, and telephone switchboard operation.

It's about to get a lot worse (again; it's been doing that every few years for two centuries). The largest employer of rural dwellers is in driving trucks. And in the next decade or so, trucks will be driving themselves.

Time to move to the city.

Only problem there is that many people in rural communities are financially unable to move to cities, even before we start looking at things like cultural barriers.

I think the crux of it is that technology is disrupting the workforce at an accelerating pace, and lately our ability to adapt doesn't seem to be fast enough. I don't think there's a practical fix in the short-term outside of more robust welfare states, and in the long-term the rust belt will have to become the ghost belt, in whatever means that takes.

 

[rousseau]

In terms of politics, Trump just seemed to be particularly skilled at conning the electorate. I don't know that the conservative message resonates as much as Trump did a particularly good job of resonating to the disenfranchised. He probably could have been beaten quite easily with a better leader on the lib side.

Not that Hillary was a bad candidate, but compare her leadership qualities to someone like Obama or Sanders and you get the picture. Another Obama would have trounced Trump.

 

[bilby]

If rural people want jobs, then they (like the vast majority of their predecessors) need to move to the cities.

Agriculture is now big, mechanised business. A handful of farmers can produce all the produce; and modern transportation systems mean that they don't need local support services - these can be more efficiently provided by a small number of centralised locations (ie Cities), rather than a large number of small towns.

It's over. The rural way of life is incompatible with a wealthy industrial or post-industrial economy. And the writing has been on the wall for more than two centuries.

Nobody's going to give rural people jobs. There's almost nothing they are needed for that can't be done better by people in cities. Their jobs have gone the way of gas-lamp lighting, whaling, and telephone switchboard operation.

It's about to get a lot worse (again; it's been doing that every few years for two centuries). The largest employer of rural dwellers is in driving trucks. And in the next decade or so, trucks will be driving themselves.

Time to move to the city.

Only problem there is that many people in rural communities are financially unable to move to cities, even before we start looking at things like cultural barriers.

Well that's likely true; but they are also financially unable to stay where they are, unless they are OK with being on welfare for the rest of their lives.

I think the crux of it is that technology is disrupting the workforce at an accelerating pace, and lately our ability to adapt doesn't seem to be fast enough. I don't think there's a practical fix in the short-term outside of more robust welfare states, and in the long-term the rust belt will have to become the ghost belt, in whatever means that takes.

I agree.

- - - Updated - - -

In terms of politics, Trump just seemed to be particularly skilled at conning the electorate. I don't know that the conservative message resonates as much as Trump did a particularly good job of resonating to the disenfranchised. He probably could have been beaten quite easily with a better leader on the lib side.

Not that Hillary was a bad candidate, but compare her leadership qualities to someone like Obama or Sanders and you get the picture. Another Obama would have trounced Trump.

Ultimately, anyone who offers hope to rural America is lying to them. There is no hope.

Of course, they want to be convinced that there is - which makes them very vulnerable to lying liars who lie.

 

[laughing dog]

This post brings up some good points

We don’t have answers for these communities. Rural and semi-rural economic development is hard. Those regions have received only negative shocks for decades; the positive shocks have accrued to the urban regions. Of course, Trump doesn’t have any answers either. But he at least pretends to care.

Just pretending to care is important. At a minimum, the electoral map makes it important.

These issues apply to more than rural and semi-rural areas. Trump’s message – that firms need to consider something more than bottom line – resonates in middle and upper-middle class households as well. They know that their grip on their economic life is tenuous, that they are the future “low-skilled” workers. And they know they will be thrown under the bus for the greater good just like “low-skilled” workers before them.

The dry statistics on trade aren’t working to counter Trump. They make for good policy at one level and terrible policy (and politics) at another. The aggregate gains are irrelevant to someone suffering a personal loss. Critics need to find an effective response to Trump. I don’t think we have it yet. And here is the hardest part: My sense is that Democrats will respond by offering a bigger safety net. But people don’t want a welfare check. They want a job. And this is what Trump, wrongly or rightly, offers.

http://economistsview.typepad.com/timduy/2016/12/desperately-searching-for-a-new-stretegy.html

People have always wanted welfare checks. They just don't want them to look like welfare.

 

[ZiprHead]

People have always wanted welfare checks. They just don't want them to look like welfare.

People want welfare checks. They just don't want "those" people to get welfare checks.