In Two Charts, Why Donodus' Labor Promises Will Fail

Chart One shows that global manufacturing as a share of GDP has been steadily shrinking for decades -- an indicator of increased productivity, generally, around the world, leading to lower labor demand:

Chart Two shows how the South Asian region's manufacturing as a share of GDP has fluctuated but generally increased for decades -- an indicator of how the poorest regions are boosted by labor flows to the cheapest source:

Combine the two, and there is just no way Donodus' promises to repatriate labor will work. In effect, he is trading short-term gains for long-term losses. Being a Luddite is not the answer.

Sidenote: This story repeats itself in other areas, too, by the way -- think climate change and coal.

So what's the answer?

Make our progressive income tax progressive again. Right now, we've got an inverted -- regressive -- tax code that rewards people like Donodus with low or zero taxes and punishes wage earners who end up paying a greater percentage of their income towards taxes, particularly at the lower middle class all the way down to just above the poverty level.

That money could be used to make wholesale elimination of welfare by providing for a universal basic income, or if that's too extreme (even though it'll come sooner or later), then enterprise credits for small and new businesses and a progressive subsidy for additional education / retraining based on age (18 years old = 10% subsidy --> 65+ = 100% subsidy).

Or, you know, we can just try it Donodus' way and see how far down the shithole this country can go and still get rescued by Democrats. 1929 was a really deep shithole and 2008 was arguably nearly as deep.