When I was young, people without a college degree were able to work regular jobs that paid pretty well. They were able to buy houses, buy cars, take the family on a vacation.
Today, everyone seems to think that you can't make enough money to even pay for a mobile home if you don't have an Ivy League degree. And manufacturing jobs are in the Far East.
HOW THE FUCK DID THIS HAPPEN over a period of about 50 years?
Here are the reasons we're getting from the political parties.
1. Unions have bid up job costs to where it's worth the cost to relocate a factory overseas.
2. Companies have figured it's cheaper locating to a country where the regulations, taxes and environmental laws are much more lax.
3. American labor just sucks, according to some.
4. America is switching from a manufacturing to a service economy.
5. Illegal aliens have come in and bid down the most mundane jobs, and in some cases are working for well below the legal minimum wage.
6. The minimum wage is too high for companies to make any profit here.
Both sides of the aisle are welcome to chime in. There are no really wrong answers here. It's my belief that BOTH political parties share responsibility for this economic clusterfuck. Over the last 7 years (or I should say since 2010) the Republican Party has basically given Barak Obama everything he wanted legislatively, so both parties share in the blame of there being over 100 million people out of work.
Think it's just one side?
Steve Jobs (a LIBERAL DEMOCRAT icon if there ever was one) decided to have the I-Phone manufactured by FoxConn in China because he said a unit would cost over $900 if it were assembled by American labor. I couldn't possibly make that up.
In my day and age, there weren't any whinings about a "Living Wage." People with even an elementary school education were able to find good jobs.
So what happened? Why did the jobs disappear? You can say high taxes, too much regulation in the same breath as "corporate greed" and you probably wouldn't be wrong.
If you people can figure this out, you'll have a clue as to why Donald Trump is ahead in all the polls as he has declared war on both political parties. Perhaps he's right.