Every year around my birthday, something bad happens. Logically speaking, it's likely a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nonetheless, the bad thing happened on the day after my birthday (which is better than the usual, the day before or the day of).
My mother and her boyfriend treated me to dinner for my birthday. They had just finished work, which the recent tariffs have affected their line of work quite heavily, as they work in software development. Their clients are often manufacturers. They were talking about the additional cost of $200 million for steel imports for a manufacturer based in Texas. I inevitably butt in to talk more about the national security side of the issue, which I know more about because its part of my career aspirations. What I said was simple: that we have to shift manufacturing to the US because China can use it as economic leverage to make us submit to their demands. It's what we have done in the past with other nations.
But what surprised me was their counterargument: Why does that matter? It's the companies that are doing business with each other; why do the governments that the companies belong to matter?
Maybe I'm stupid and I don't understand their point, but I don't understand how this isn't obvious. It can be a conflict of interest. You would want companies to operate for the betterment of your people because you host them. If the government gives them tax exemptions or subsidies, it's to "reward" them for their economic contributions. You don't want to be giving these "rewards" to a company that can flip on you like a dime and put thousands of your people out of work; the government has to step in for unemployment benefits if need be. This is just one reason out of many.
But of course, as older people say, I'm too young, too stupid, I haven't lived life long enough to know why we must shut down factories here so China can use cheap labor, why we somehow don't have raw materials even though the reason why we stopped digging our material up was to use cheap labor instead of a lack of supply, or why I should compete with the entire continent of Pajeetistan - because I can never measure up to the work ethic and drive of a nepotistic, cheating, retarded 3rd worlder.
And because I am a woman and women do this during arguments, I started to cry because I was frustrated. I kept getting called crazy over and over again, and it wasn't like I was rambling like a schizo or tarding out. I didn't say all 'jeets must be fried on a skillet, I simply told them like it is. How I can't even get Walmart to look at my applications, while they are one of the largest recipients of H1-B nonsense, how disheartening it is to be told to do one thing all your life, then have the rug pulled from under you because you just never tried hard enough. Your straight A's, all-nighters, juggle sessions with work and college, internships, and awards alike, are not hard work. You have never tried at all, so you must be dependent forever, and there is no forgiveness for you.
I hate how surprised many are about how right-wing my generation is. I grew up in a nihilistic monoculture that robbed me of culture and identity because it was somehow worse than Bangladeshis posting selfies in front of the Hindus they lynched. I'm told I never worked hard and I mean nothing while I grew up with subtarded hoodlums who would steal my shit if I kept my eye off it for a second, where I woke up each morning wondering if there was going to be another gang war on campus. I slipped on blood in the cafeteria once. And I didn't grow up in New York, California, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami...I grew up in what was once a quiet, peaceful city. I'm tired. Burn it down.
