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Comment by cucumber3732842 | Hacker News Reader

Who's we?

The college educated white collar professionals who are grossly over-represented in policy discourse?

Middle america, the formerly industrial northeast and the former bulk industry west have been complaining about this shit policy for over a generation.

Implicitly shuttering our manufacturing and heavy industry by subjecting it to policy that we knew would make it increasingly noncompetitive at the margin and would prevent continuing investment was a macro/federal level economic policy choice that was actively pursued for approx 50yr.

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What government policies are you referring to? Businesses moved manufacturing to China because their goal is to make as much money as possible. The only potential barrier is if US citizens would care that it wasn't made in America. Products are labeled and most people don't care.

This is an American quality where a person who works in a factory that makes extension cords and needs their job to survive would buy the cheaper lamp even though it's made in China.

Most people aren't willing to make financial sacrifices to help people they don't know EVEN if they might be affected by another person having the same belief.

> Businesses moved manufacturing to China because their goal is to make as much money as possible.

There used to be other times and more honorable businessmen. Then came the Dodge Brothers who managed to get a court judgement asserting shareholder supremacy over long term interests [1].

The only thing I never understood is how in god's name Amazon got away with reinvesting profits and never dishing out to shareholders for decades.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

>There used to be other times and more honorable businessmen

The 1930s through 1960s (i.e. industrialization had matured but you can't construe it as "modern" business) are chock full of corporate raiders, acquisitions with nearly monopolistic goals, cartels, etc.

>Most people aren't willing to make financial sacrifices to help people they don't know EVEN if they might be affected by another person having the same belief.

Because in the US that's the case because people give a shit about cost - you could make financial sacrifices to help your community by buying local...but your costs of living are skyrocketing every year, the costs of your family are increasing, and the difference between buying from BigCorp (Walmart, Amazon) and from your local store (which is 1.3-1.7x the price vs BigCorp) adds up.

Sad but it's true.

Not overrepresented enough given that middle America has disproportionate per capita voting power

It's not just middle america. It's the entire economy that deals in things first and numbers and ideas second.

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