How So-Called 'Free Trade' DESTROYED American Jobs

[SMITTY]

This is the best explanation I have ever seen on how we got here, and what needs to be done to correct it.

By "IT", I mean the WIDE gap between CEO and worker wages, the exporting of American manufacturing, and the general decimation of the middle class.

[mozz]

I worked for a company whom brought in a new CEO. I guess the last guy wasn't showing the profit the stockholders wanted. Anyway, this guy previously worked for Energizer and some watch company in NY. Had 2 houses, 1 in PA, 1 in CT. etc. On his work bio webpage, when he worked for the watch company, his accomplishment was "Significant reduction in headcount". Basically cut jobs and it eventually moved to China.

Later when i left, after he cut jobs where i was at, i called out his webpage to show people this is what he does for his massive salary. All of a sudden i got a cease and desist letter in the mail, for calling out the truth and posting about some shady product selling practices. The webpage suddenly changed and no mention of headcount reductions.

Doubt he works there anymore, probably moved to another company to "improve" the profits.

There will be a lot of "custom made suit and tie" guys with fancy cars in hell.

[ColdHouse]

Tomorrows manufacturing will not be the same as yesteryears manufacturing. Tomorrow, machines, robotics, AI, will do the work not people.

[theo]

Yes but alot of jobs will be made to produce AI

[theo]

The glass, half full or half empty???? Me, nowadays i'am just happy i have a glass!!!

[Sunny Boy]

I see it as my "glass" was being emptied the past four years and now I see the level in my "glass" is going back up.

I track my monthly bills and since Trump took office my total cost has gone down several hundred dollars a month.

Paul

[waytomany?s]

I see it as my "glass" was being emptied the past four years and now I see the level in my "glass" is going back up.

I track my monthly bills and since Trump took office my total cost has gone down several hundred dollars a month.

Paul

Any one thing that was a big change?

[Sunny Boy]

Any one thing that was a big change?

I have a variable-rate home equity loan that hiden biden drove up by about 140.00 a month with his high inflation. It started coming down after the election and has been dropping even more a month after Trump took office.

Also seeing a drop in gas, food, and other monthly shopping.

Paul

[SMITTY]

Definitely cheaper to drive, even in this state. Fuel costs have consistently been lower than last year.

Because this is MA, nothing else is.

The state actually gave everyone a $50 credit on their electric bills. Real nice of them, after THEY caused the HIGHEST ELECTRIC RATES in the NATION!! That $50 will be stolen back 50,000-fold. Just enough to keep their bleating sheep base happy. "Nothing to see here!" F'ing jerkoffs.

Yeah, the CEO at the company I work for is a MULTI millionaire, as are everyone on his floor (another 8-10 people at least). One guy cashed out just a TINY FRACTION of stocks he held in the company - netted him $700,000!!!!!!!!!! I'd have to break my balls for FIFTEEN years to get that ... and have to give 1/3rd of it to government! Must be nice.

I'm a little bitter, yeah. But I made the bed I lie in. You're going to work for peanuts when you make a career out of partying, like I did for almost 4 decades.

[ColdHouse]

I can't say I see anything cheaper. My Retirement that tracks the S&P is down about 16%. I don't see any relieve in gas prices where I live. Food is up. Everything I go to the store everything more expensive. Maybe just where I live.

[Retro_Origin]

I can't say I see anything cheaper. My Retirement that tracks the S&P is down about 16%. I don't see any relieve in gas prices where I live. Food is up. Everything I go to the store everything more expensive. Maybe just where I live.

I agree, I think it's a little premature to think ANY administration can make changes fast enough to see price drops in multiple areas this soon.

As far as the 'destruction of American jobs' I believe a lot of it is due to complacency. As my cousin in law says "America is in the arts and crafts stage of culture". We are living on the momentum of generations who went before us and worked hard, men who went to work 6-7 days a week to support their family, businesses who risked everything they had to just get their foot in the door of success, families who sustained the family business through poverty, depressions and wars. Blah blah blah it goes on and on, and now our teens and our men are walking around in crocs in pajamas with their phone in hand. In public. Employees have a chip on their shoulder, like the business 'owes them something', it's all about what can be milked out of the system than being a contributor to it.

This is why some immigrants are doing so well, they escape by the skin of their teeth into a country ripe with opportunity, because those who were handed opportunity thru the hard work of their forefathers have failed to utilize it.

[warminmn]

Slightly higher prices here than 4 months ago. I dont see that in Walmart prices but sure do in smaller stores and dollar stores. It probably wont change much, other than fuel, until the next recession, whenever that is. Or unless the tariff thing makes prices better.

[Sunny Boy]

Maybe some are too young to remember NAFTA and the huge migration of jobs to south of the boarder.

The village of about 1500 that I live in had a factory that employed about 450 people with good pay doing sterilizing of single-use surgical supplies. The EPA was cracking down on that factory for venting the chemical gas they used to sterilize the items before packaging. NAFTA came along and that company packed up and moved to Mexico, taking all those jobs where there were no pollution restrictions.

An even smaller small town about 20 miles north of here had a factory that made feminine hygiene products and bandages for the military. All those jobs also gone to Mexico thanks to NAFTA.

South of here, Norwich, a city of about 10,000, lost many hundreds of good paying jobs at several drug manufacturers to Mexico.

That NAFTA resulting job loss happened in many other cities and towns here in central NY, but it never made the national news.

Paul

[Retro_Origin]

Great share, Paul, it's amazing how destructive or constructive one single thing can be. In those cases, obviously destructive.

[ColdHouse]

The idea that manufacturing jobs are coming back to the United States is a pipe dream. That kind of thinking is as delusional as expecting cranes to be replaced by block and tackle, or excavators to give way to men with shovels and rakes. No construction crew is going back to hammer and nail when there’s a power nailer on site. We don’t regress in the name of nostalgia—we advance for the sake of efficiency.

If any manufacturing industry does return to the U.S., it won’t bring jobs—it’ll bring robotics, automation, and AI. You won’t see thousands of seamstresses lining up at a new textile plant. You’ll see machines humming quietly in rows, monitored by a handful of technicians. It won’t be a jobs boom—it’ll be a labor contraction dressed up as progress.

And it’s not just blue-collar work that’s vanishing. We’re watching white-collar roles dissolve too, because anything that once required knowledge—legal advice, accounting, design, even diagnostics—is now software. Knowledge has been digitized. The need for the educated professional is rapidly being replaced by applications, algorithms, and AI models that never sleep, never forget, and scale infinitely.

Just yesterday, I stuffed a pile of bills into an ATM and watched it count faster and more accurately than any teller. Went to the grocery store where self-checkout lanes have replaced nearly every cashier—and now some stores have robots doing inventory. These aren't signs of a temporary shift. This is the new infrastructure.

So no, human labor is not on the rise. The return of American jobs, as many politicians and pundits like to promise, is not only unlikely—it’s absurd. Maybe production will return. Maybe we’ll make more things on American soil to reduce dependency on foreign supply chains. But don’t confuse that with employment. The factory of the future doesn’t run on people—it runs on code.