Will Trump’s tariffs work?
Donald Trump has been in office for 100 days and he has managed to get the entire planet angered at America. Trump has thrown a huge monkey wrench into the worlds economies and the stock markets are in a tizzy and it seems a financial collapse is likely, yet Trump is telling us were going to be rich from his tariffs and it will bring manufacturing back to America. I under stand where he’s coming from. His pie in the sky hype of bringing back manufacturing by forcing the capitalist ruling classes to bring back what they exported (out of greed) makes sense to me.
As a baby boomer, I vividly remember how this area was a manufacturing center, where almost every willing able-bodied man of all rac es, creed, or color were able to make a middle class living, because of the countless factories in the area. From Bethlehem and Republic Steel, Chevy, Ford, Westinghouse, General Motors and many more plants were peppered throughout the area. Almost every day, I pass by the old Curtiss Wright Building on Grider St. Few people remember fighter aircrafts were manufactured and assembled in that building during the WW 1 and WW2.
If manufacturing were to come back, how many Americans would be ready and willing to do the tedious tasks of factory work today? Americans today are soft and really don’t know what work is. In the 70’s, during my college years my uncle hooked me up with a summer job where he worked. It was a tool factory named J.H Williams located in Riverside. I worked the second shift 4pm-12am and I hated it. The thing about factory work is you work on your feet from the time you punch in until time to punch out. Every 2 hours there was a 10 minute “smoke break” behind a plexi glass enclosure that was a nicotine gas chamber. In those days almost everyone smoked cigarettes— except me. I learned to drink that nasty coffee, and I never stopped after that.
The weirdest thing was the 30-minute lunch break. It was amazing what happened in those 30 minutes. There was a tavern directly across from the plant, where throngs of men made a beeline over to the bar and gobbled down a sandwich and an entire pitcher of beer and bosses never seemed to be concerned. That was because they were in the bar with everyone else. And there were times when the smell of wacky weed waft ed in the air of the parking lot. Ohhh wait, that might have been me.
On the one hand, I appreciated my summers working in the factory because it taught me what real work is; but I promised myself I would never work in a factory again, as long as I live, but I digressed. My point is there could be a method to Trumps madness and maybe it might work. And in the end, it could turn out to be positive for the world. Perhaps the world has become too dependent on the American tit for their salva tion. That is the attitude many African nations are realizing that decoupling with America is their best path and are looking to themselves to develop their own economies. The bottom line is American is at the end of its empire like all other empires has before. Americans must except that fact.