Well, I believe that the goal of the tariffs is to bring back manufacturing employment. (time will tell, I guess.) But with manufacturing gone to elsewhere in the world, with many retail jobs gone to on-line shopping, a trend that will just increase more than likely, and with AI threatening who knows what else is a problem.

I'm worried that there wont be enough jobs for Americans to do to make money to sustain the economy of a nation our size. Just my very humble two cents.

Today I heard that in our area, 16% of home sale contracts in July were cancelled. The reason was that people were getting nervous about their jobs or promotion expectations will be affected by AI, and that seniors are concerned about tariffs affecting their portfolios. And if a buyer cancels, and the seller already has a house purchased or a contract to buy, the seller is in a pickle.

" Well, I believe that the goal of the tariffs is to bring back manufacturing employment. (time will tell, I guess.) "

You have a long wait.

The rest of the world learned long ago that removing rather than implementing tariffs is a tool to stimulate economic growth. The ignoramuses who think otherwise are simply playing to their similarly unenlightened listeners. The tariffs are temporary but in the meantime, ordinary people will suffer because a consequence is that prices will have to increase for consumers, to pass along the added costs.

The jobs and manufacturing activities that have gone, are gone. People who are waiting for the unionized car plant or whatever other kind of factory down the road to reopen also have a long wait.

Ours is a wealthy nation, but with uneven distribution of that wealth not seen since the Oil Baron days. How to change it?

I too am worried about 'economies' of AI and robotic manufacturing. I do not see Americans accepting the slave labor/minimum wage jobs prevalent in the poor nations currently making the goods we buy so cheaply. Nor do I see us paying what those goods will cost to produce when paying that 'living wage'.

So...how DO we keep 99% of the wealth from enriching today's 'Barons'? How did we level the field in the past?

of a nation our size

Decreasing the availability of vaccines to both adults and children and decreasing funds for health care may trim down the population some. Already the birth rate is at a record low.

I am a homeowner, and raised my kids in the homes we have owned over the years. So that was the example set for them. But my 24 yo DS who earns a 6-figure income won't consider even buying a condo. He and his peers no longer believe home ownership is attainable or a good investment. He explained his investment strategy that will outpace home ownership. Of course, he's only 24, and a lot will change in his perspective in the next decade. But it's definitely a mindset among his age group. When I was his age, I was dreaming of my first home. Things have changed.

lucille, balance in democracies usually comes from power shifting from one party to another and then again. Usually without the unconstitutional and unprecedented retribution going on.

Parties voted out and placed into the position of opposition always grouse about what the new powerholders do and work to try to regain elements of power at the next opportunity.

I don't see the second part happening at present. Other than the grousing and jabbering, is there a plan? Were lessons learned? The lack of a winning plan (as happened last time) becomes a losing plan.

A month ago I caught a portion of the Plantir CEO interview on CNBC. He predicted exponential growth ahead while expecting to cut their workforce by 25%. He sounded excited, the interviewer was impressed. I was wondering what the employees are thinking. What lies ahead.

So...how DO we keep 99% of the wealth from enriching today's 'Barons'? How did we level the field in the past?

The way they did it in the 1900s was through a marginal income tax where the more you made, the more you paid in taxes which knocked down the income inequality at the top. The peak marginal % paid in taxes was 94% in 1944 and applied to incomes of $200k and up. It is now 37%, and only 20% on capital gains. Moreover, the wealthiest avoid taxes by not making any income, but instead borrow against their wealth for spending money. I'm sure elmer knows much more about this than I and will correct anything I've gotten wrong, but the key point is income disparity at the top was damped by the income tax.

That money was then used for social programs that improved productivity for workers through educational programs (the GI bill was an incredible boon), social safety net programs and government spending to improve healthcare. This had the effect of putting a floor under poverty levels due to aging, disability, unemployment or other factors. Things like food programs had the double benefit of supporting agriculture and reducing rural poverty at the same time as fighting food insecurity. The middle class grew by making higher education and better paying jobs more accessible. And corporations benefited from having access to a better prepared workforce. The money was also used to improve the infrastructure which generated more productivity and thus wealth for the nation.

There's a simple formula for economic growth.

GDP=GDP/W * W

where

GDP (the total output of the economy)

GDP/W is GDP per worker (or productivity)

W (# of workers)

The more workers, the greater the output. The more productive our workers, the greater the output.

What this means is that, as the baby boom came on, and then the womens lib movement, the number of workers in the economy went up like crazy and so did economic growth. However, we now have a baby bust and an aging, retiring population. The birth rate is dropping and along with it is our potential for growth. Europe has had a slower trend growth than the US and part of this is due to the fact that the US has had a higher immigration rate than has Europe. How does this work? People think the economy is a box with a fixed number of jobs, and if an immigrant comes in and takes one of those jobs, a citizen is kicked out of work. But that's not the case. Rather as immigrants come in, they have needs and wants so they earn money and spend money and make the economy grow. One estimate I saw recently was immigrants added $1 trillion to economic growth. By reducing the number of immigrants, you are lowering the "W" in the equation above and will necessarily be lowering economic growth.

Another important lever was the increase in unionization which forced corporations to share their profitability with workers. The rapid rise in productivity through manufacturing was shared with workers through the forcing mechanism of unions which gave us things like 40 hr workweeks, healthcare, overtime, vacations, etc. But over time, as manufacturing shrank, the number of union jobs shrank, corporations -- whose primary function is to maximize profits for share owners -- kept more of the profits less went to workers.

As service and white collar jobs grew, unionization did not and so workers did not garner the same share of profits as they had in the past. Today's healthcare workers and data administrators and webmasters, etc. are today's 'blue collar workforce' but without unions to force corporations to share the pie. There's a reason why so many corporations fight unionization so rabidly.

Finally, free trade has been an unbelievable boost to economic growth and productivity. We saw the damaging effects of tariffs in the 1930s which made the depression longer and deeper. Free trade is not the problem. Just like with immigration, the economy is not a box where a job is 'sent' overseas not to be replaced. Rather, it's ensuring workers and thus the middle class get their fair share of those productivity benefits garnered from free trade. An old example I used all the time was if Kansas had to raise their own lobster and Maine had to grow their own wheat...how expensive it would be to run aquariums in KS and greenhouses in ME and how inaccessible both products would be to the consumers due to high costs. If they allow free trade so Kansas can specialize in wheat and Maine in lobsters, the cost of both products will drop dramatically, the consumers would be able to afford it and the economies of both states will grow. However it will mean a shift in the makeup of the labor force....aquarium workers in KS and greenhouse workers in ME would each lose jobs, but the growth of jobs in the other industries would far exceed that of the jobs lost. It is precisely those productivity gains that tariffs damage and it's done at the expense of the consumers. How high would tariffs have to be to make it economical for corporations to create lobster aquariums in KS and acres of greenhouses in ME?

Phew! And that's my short answer!

Feathers: Another issue that is within my observation, young people are not getting married or having kids. It's too expensive. My adult twins are an example. They are both homeowners, living with SOs that are extremely stable. (one together 15 years, the other going on 10). Nobody is remotely interested in the "get married, have a family thing." They are fine with dogs and cats, and enjoying being free of debt, other than their morgages, taxes, and insurance. I'm totally fine with that, but worry about the long term effect if that becomes the norm. As usual, it will be the middle class that pays for it all, and suffers. In my line of work, I was honored to instruct a lot of young adult students. They were awesome, and I loved every minute of my role. We would have many opportunities to just chat, and I found the same attitudes. Little interest in following the previous generations' calculations of success.

Confiscatory and penalizing high individual income tax rates lead to tax cheating, disincentives for productive work, and emigration. This has been seen over and over again, in country after country among industrialized nations. Rates were high during WW2 to help fund the war. There were also record high corporate tax rates during the same years, for the same reason - these were called Excess Profits taxes . I have very many personal experiences and anecdotes in country after country about the misunderstanding social do-gooders typically have had about wanting to raise tax rates. It would take too much time to describe any of the several handfuls of experiences I have.

People at the highest level of income in a society pay a minor amount of total taxes. In many countries, the greatest factor for income redistribution from the better off to the less well off is social taxes and these are always at a rather low rate but large in total. But are paid by a wide swath of the population so it adds up. Raising tax on the top tier of income recipients doesn't do much but what I described above.

You have your cause and effect backwards for the effect of unions on employment. Union membership decreased because of lost jobs, not because of union shops becoming non-unionized (which I believe the law doesn't permit. Out of control American unions were the single largest factor leading to the closing of manufacturing plants and loss of jobs in the so called Rust Belt. Car manufacturing migrated to non-unionized Southern states, which is also where most of the inbound investment of foreign car companies went. Other manufacturing jobs were off-shored. Unskilled, uneducated US factory workers came to expect that a job at "the plant" was a ticket to the middle class. It isn't so in other countries. It resulted from their being overpaid. They became (and remain) too expensive and when such production stays here under such circumstances, products are produced that people can't afford to buy.

As I said before - lost jobs won't be returning in large numbers, and if at all, likely only in token amounts.

Your cited economy stats are analytical tools, not operative equations. One H atom plus two Oxygen make H2O. Adding one more worker increases costs but not necessarily production or GDP. It doesn't work that way.

On much of what you said, did you happen to have these graphs saved on your PC? How much of what you wrote could have been written 3 days ago and without internet searches?

I'll tell a couple of quick ones about unintended tax disincentives. \

I had a business flight from Stockholm to Paris. Sitting next to me was a well-dressed 40-ish fellow who I could tell (from the newspaper he was reading) was Swedish. We chatted a bit and exchanged pleasantries. I asked if he was on a business trip and he said no, he was on his way to the Cote d'Azur for an extended holiday. It was in April (you'll see in a few sentences why I remember that) and I observed that it was a bit late to be escaping the Swedish winter. He chuckled and said - No, "his work was done for the year" and he spent most of his time in the South on holiday. I asked if he worked when down there and he said No and explained that by April, he'd made so much income as a pricey consultant that with the resulting tax rate he was subject to, it wasn't worth working more. So he worked through to April and took the rest of the year off. But, he added, he had a residency application pending in Monaco and when that was approved, he'd relocate there and be able to work a greater portion of the year and keep all he earned. Many similar stories from foreigners who moved to Switzerland and with whom the Swiss authorities would negotiate paltry, fixed sums of annual tax to entice them to move there.

I learned while living in Europe that Luxembourg had become a banking center because companies could issue bonds and the investors could collect interest free of tax. Not subject to L withholding tax, and undeclared on their home country returns. Many bonds were issued in bearer form (bring bond with a number and no registered name to the agent bank and interest would be paid in cash, using currency of the recipient's choice). The food in Luxembourg is very good and many bonds were issued with interest payable in April-May and October-November. That way, a trip to the bank could include an enjoyable meal of Spring or Fall seasonal favorites.

"On much of what you said, did you happen to have these graphs saved on your PC? How much of what you wrote could have been written 3 days ago and without internet searches?"

Elmer, I was ready and even essentially invited you in my post to have a discussion of the issues, but you blew that with your petitdick behavior. I was hoping, knew better, but tried anyway. Sometimes, just sometimes, I wish you weren't so predictable.

I am fine with you arguing issues with me. However, I am sick of your denigrating my professional background, trying to belittle my knowledge, experience and 30+ year career. Keep your mouth off me personally and stick with the issues. And no I won't be posting my CV for you and won't be bullied into it by you. But for those who are familiar with my background, they see what a fool you are making of yourself. Just do yourself a favor and stop. I respect your professional background and expect you to reciprocate. Your behavior only demonstrates your lack of character and misogyny.

Well...Feather11 addressed something I'm seeing...young people either don't want to buy a home...or don't want the responsibility....and they want the swimming pool, the tennis court...they want luxury.

annie, you seemed to not understand much of what your comment said (apparent search findings) nor were you apparently able to understand the info, graphs and data you happened upon nor put them into context. Your rebuttal to my explanations of why and what I thought was different from what you said was not an engagement on the issues but simply a tirade of insults.

Have a nice day.

One way that's been suggested to support Social Security is to raise the FICA cutoff on earned income. IDK why there even IS a top limit. Why should some of us be taxed on our entire incomes while those with more income only pay on a portion of theirs?

I agree predictable is an apropos term. Isn't it funny how most people can simply share information objectively without casting aspersions on other members here?

So many young people simply aren't able to afford home ownership these days - those who have a choice are not the majority, I'm thinking. This made me think of the young couples seen on so many HGTV home buying shows: she's a massage therapist, he's a snowboarder, and they have a $600K budget. Always made me wonder if their parents were involved.

chisue, I can think of a few different ways of looking at it but try this:

There's a wage cap (how much is subject to tax), and also a monthly benefit cap.

Social Security was sold as and remains sold as a system to pay into during working years and draw out (as if a pension) at retirement. (Though it really isn't just that, it's also a supplemental income tax). But sticking with that, if the wage cap were lifted but the benefits limit kept in place, why anyone accept paying, say, double what someone else pays, only to get the same benefit?

" Isn't it funny how most people can simply share information objectively without casting aspersions on other members here? "

I'll keep my eyes open to find examples of what you cite. Her post was subjective, not objective, and her response included insults aimed at me.

But thanks for sharing your views.

I agree with chisue. That’s certainly the easiest fix that’s been suggested & I think the least impactful on the group that would have to pay out more money. I had wondered if an individual annual upper income limit on full retirement age eligibility to receive SS would work. But, I decided that would be too cumbersome for retirees to document to collect SS annually & too costly for SS to administer a program like that. It’s easier to document before full retirement age becase those income limits are on an individual’s earned income. Much of retirement income is 1099 & is joint income. I wondered about it because of the income limits for persons collecting SS retirement early. Maybe the ability to collect early should be removed. Though early collectors receive less, they might be living longer & so collecting more in total.

KW, I don't know if the following is similar to what you're thinking about, but consider this:

Medicare Part B has a sliding cost scale. The premium ranges from $185 per month to $628 (amounts from lookup), depending on an individual's total income. Individuals don't need to document this, Adjust Gross Income data from tax returns is furnished to the SS Administration by the IRS. The determination for a married couple is done based on joint income. The SS Administration needs this info because the Medicare B premium is subtracted from monthly Social Security payments, as you probably know.

Elmer, that’s a good point about how Medicare costs are calculated. I knew that but didn’t factor it in. Perhaps that’s the easiest & best plan to fix SS - but in reverse of course! The higher the income the less SS received. But, how much less? And, next year’s SS would be based on last year’s income. What happens when this year’s income is reduced because last year was a great market year but this current year isn’t & the expected dividend income is less? It gets messy I think & most people don’t save enough for a rainy day. IMHO only, there will never be a fix or plan that suits everyone!

" Perhaps that’s the easiest & best plan to fix SS - but in reverse of course! "

There's an element of that in place now and has been for awhile - whether or not the received benefits are subject to income tax. People at very low income levels pay no tax on benefits, people at higher levels (actually not very high) are taxed on up to 85%. This is controversial, many are unhappy with it, and the administration has said they want the law changed.

I'm not sure about your plan for reducing benefits - it could work like the Medicare Part B charge, on a one year time lag. But politically, I see reducing benefits are being the same as increasing the wage base without increasing benefits for those who pay more. DOA from a political standpoint, unlikely to be enacted. Political suicide for any politician advocating such action.

Social Security is a sacred cow to voters of all affiliations.