America's astonishing act of self-harm | Hacker News Reader

America's astonishing act of self-harm

ft.com

48 pointsmooreds24 comments

And yet the people that will be most harmed by this are the ones who voted for this administration. That makes it even more amazing.

Being fucked up (in different forms) by elected officials is nothing new or amazing - this is happening in many countries (although US looks exceptional in terms of speed and depth of "penetration"). Amazing will it be if these most harmed people vote for this administration _again_ in one form or another.

Trump made up a fentanyl crisis as the national emergency to justify bypassing Congress to impose the tariffs on Canada. I haven't seen any made up national emergency to justify this set of tariffs. Did he? If not, could this be quickly struck down as unconstitutional?

[Republican] Congress could stop this tomorrow by passing updated trade laws, but they are full complicit in this attack in America.

Which is why I'm hoping this can be quickly struck down by the courts instead.

Deaths from fentanyl in the USA are imaginary?

It's not coming from Canada

Also deaths peaked in 2023 and are falling https://www.npr.org/2025/03/07/nx-s1-5295618/fentanyl-overdo...

Yep, that Canada is suffering much more than the Sacklers and other corporate drug lords tells us all we need to know.

it really is fascinating how the rich people on the Right in the US consider factory work, by white men, who are not them (they get to keep their laptop jobs of course) is about the only valid thing for other people to be doing, and will absolutely upend the entire world to achieve this.

What the median right-of-center rich American wanted was tax cuts, with maybe a little bit of culture-war anti left stuff thrown in for spice. They are not pleased with abandoning the economic world order that Reagan did so much to promote. Sensibly designed, focused tariffs can be good for the economy, but that's not what's being rolled out.

The people who actually want these blunt universal tariffs fall into three categories:

  * The uneducated
  * The deluded
  * The grifters

The uneducated want tariffs because they think it will restore their purchasing power and middle-class status (which it won't).

The deluded want tariffs because they've bought into the cult, and the reckoning with reality if they back out now is too painful to contemplate.

The grifters actually benefit from selective exemptions based on political loyalty and having the money flowing into the right coffers.

Its just an evolution of sending them "over the top" to charge at the enemy machine guns.

Officers died at nearly twice the rate of other ranks in WW1. I don't see Musk being the self-sacrificing kind.

Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make

Your message implies there is other wowork "white men" are currently doing (but shouldn't?).

What are the invalid things they seem to be doing today?

The unemployment is very low, so yes they are doing other stuff.

But what?

Your argument was that they (rich white men) are reprehensible for desiring others to be doing something like factory work, instead of "that".

You say "that" is work, and not sitting around unemployed. Citing a statistic. Ok lets proceed with that.

So which work is "that"?

Overall unemployment rate was around 4%, which is quite low. If you are personally interested in what the exact breakdown of positions is, then I suggest you head to the https://www.bls.gov/ or other site that collect these stats and check it out.

Unemployment was not even the issue in elections. It was inflation - buying power.

Unemployment literally only tracks those interacting with State unemployment insurance. People out of work who aren't interfacing with said established monitoring may as well not exist in the same manner as engine & cockpit shot planes in WWII.

In short, citing unemployment is falling for the mother of all survivorship biases. If you're more interested in fake paperwork derived numbers than the actual world though, you do you then.

"Unemployment literally only tracks those interacting with State unemployment insurance. "

They don't do it that way. I don't know if labor force participation measurements are more or less accurate from relying on survey data tho.

https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm

That is not correct. You should close the tab on that shadowstats bullshit.

BLS employment measures are calculated from the Current Population Survey and the Current Employment Statistics. CPS is a bimonthly survey of a rolling population of 60000 households. CES is a monthly survey of over 100000 businesses.

The GP didn't specify the race of the rich people, and the person you're replying to isn't the GP.

Apart from that, it's unclear why you're asking for examples of work that isn't factory work.

I find that this short <3m video explains it well: https://x.com/Ark_Editing/status/1900522055038058803 (start at about 40s)

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