From today's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "The End of Fast Fashion?" (audio and transcript at Podscribe).
I'm happy to see the NYT devoting some attention to the progressive argument in favor of Trump's tariffs on China.
May 15, 2025
"And what's interesting here is that even people who are skeptical of Trump's tariffs might be in favor of reining in fast fashion for environmental reasons or because they're against overconsumption."
"And you can actually see that playing out online. 'We need to stop filling up our closets and fill up our banks. There's this whole buy less movement.' 'We're not rich enough to afford these tariffs. So let's embrace the idea of under consumption.' 'Maybe we need to start taking responsibility for how much textile waste is in landfills in other countries.' 'Our relationship with consumption is fundamentally unhealthy, and people cannot stop buying stuff.' On TikTok, alongside the massive Shein hauls, you can also see people having conversations about consuming less... and being more intentional about where they're buying things from...."
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33 comments:
Labor and environmental arbitrage. Also, migration of precursors to abortive drugs. Currency exchange manipulation, too.
LOL at the "progressive" argument in favor of tariff. I find the hidden assumption that there is a "conservative" case for tariffs hilarious.
The only reason the left does love the tariffs is because of Trump. The only reason the right tolerates them is because of Trump.
Even a corrupt, demented squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.
The only reason the left does [not] love the tariffs is because of Trump. The only reason the right tolerates them is because of Trump.
You are using "the right" as a metonym for globalist neocons and utopian lolbertarians. We reactionary paleocons, who in most respects would happily rewind the national clock to 1909 or so, know that our country grew wealthy and powerful in the days of high tariffs and don't feel the need to merely "tolerate" them at all.
"and people cannot stop buying stuff."
SOME people. Like NYT readers, apparently. I don't think my new underwear and socks every few years is filling up 3rd world textile dumps.
Just finished Adam Minter's fascinating book "Secondhand". Apparently "fast fashion" is so cheap and shitty it can't even be recycled as rags.
The need to label an argument conservative or progressive or liberal is just mental laziness. It is done by lazy people who treat policy as a tribal matter.
What most of the country has known for a long time is that the US economy has been rigged to favor Globalist Oligarchs and Government Employees. They suppress US workers and wages so Corporations can make more money. They regulate US Domestic producers to reduce competition for the Globalist Oligarchs.
All Trump is doing is shifting the tax burden to tax things produced in other countries and reduce the burden on production in the US and to reduce the taxes on US labor.
Nothing more nothing less.
The Free Trade supporters are supporting a fallacy. Some know they are scumbags. Some are just stupid.
D.D. Driver said...
LOL at the "progressive" argument in favor of tariff. I find the hidden assumption that there is a "conservative" case for tariffs hilarious.
The only reason the left does love the tariffs is because of Trump. The only reason the right tolerates them is because of Trump.
There is no right and left anymore. There are people who put Americans interests first and Globalists.
The Republican Party voters realized over the years that the Republican and Democrat Parties were both serving the same masters and always "compromised" to reach the same goals which was to make their Globalist Masters rich.
Right now you have some idiots like DD Driver who have not realized they are no longer relevant in any way shape or form. There is no "Conservative" party. There is no "Right Wing" party.
Those were stupid labels to lead stupid people.
TeaBagHag said...
Even a corrupt, demented squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.
Even someone this limited is starting to realize that Trump is doing many things Democrats have promised to do for 50 years.
Republican voters realized they were being sold out.
Democrat voters just aren't very smart.
Trump's tariffs resulted in a gain of $56 Billion in the month of April for the USA. But libtard Party members are still going to pretend that they're struggling because Trump.
Interesting - I guess. I have shoes that are over 40 and still extremely comfortable, and jeans that are over 10 and worked hard. They usually wear out because of the washing, because I can patch up the damage from the hard work. I'm a 'slow fashion' advocate I guess, being frugal.
Hakeem, we hardly knew ye…
https://x.com/Joe_S_Pure/status/1922826092714287532
a Hag gotta know her limitations, Achilles!
I'm all for it, especially if it means a return to repairable things like appliances!
The progressive argument is: lower your expectations. It's a corollary of "you will own nothing and be happy." Their finding congruence works only as they can use it to promote their ideals.
I realize that writing prose is hard, but are those arguments really "progressive"? What they seem to have in common is a sort of trivial asceticism, a desire to signal one's virtue by depriving oneself of something one is unlikely to miss much. While I do think that progressivism is fundamentally unserious, I don't think you need to be progressive to indulge in this species of inanity.
Temu built entire businesses on evading tariffs. So they aren't "innovators" except in a sense of dodging tariffs that other American and other firms have to pay.
Its incredibly stupid of us to allow them to become so large.
Shein less so, but probably the same.
Europe ran into this, too. Dodging 20% VAT tax is really helpful for your selling price.
When fashion is redefined every season, and people can't stand the thought of a fashion faux pas by wearing last year's/season's fashion then we have this fashion problem. It is not cheap clothes so much as having to be trendy. Be like Aggie and buy something useful and comfortable and wear it out before buying new. You will 1. stop wasting money, 2 stop filling up landfills, be more conscious of the value of the garment you are buying. If it takes tariffs to awaken people to the silliness of fashion, and leads to fewer older folks on public assistance because they had no savings, maybe it's a good thing.
Out with slave-made fashion, I want my clothes made right here and by robots! I want more shirts than Gatsby, sez I. Does that mean I'm left or right? Do I have to read the NYT to figure that out?
Cue the bonfire of the vanities.
How are Americans responsible for textiles dumped in foreign landfills?
Am I alone in not seeing tariff impacts in what I buy? It’s not as though my wallet is locked shut; as doting grandfather I have been buying clothes and birthday toys for toddler grandkids. Certainly with toddlers there is no option to try to get another year out of shoes and outfits!
At this point I presume that the Omigawd we’re DOOMED crowd don’t understand economics as well as Trump does. Which isn’t a surprise.
"You'll own nothing and you'll be happy" (alternatively "You'll own nothing and be happy") is a phrase published by the World Economic Forum (WEF).[1]
WEF’s goal for this is 2030. Just five more years and you’ll be happy. And you *will* like it.
The left, and the leftist hags in comments, refuse to say anything positive about Trumps policies, even when they benefit from them.
And did you notice NOT one of those leftist retards had a suggestion for a better way. It is just the now usual 2 minute hate session, extended to 24/7. Orwell would be so proud of the left.
and congress decided the best course of action is to do nothing at all, except minor sniping at Trump. I often wonder if a couple hundred thousand of us went to DC and visited Republican legislators , if that might motivate them.
“Between the lines: The Producer Price Index, a gauge of wholesale prices, showed little sign of tariff-related price pressures that businesses have warned about.
PPI fell by 0.5% in April after a flat reading in March, rounding out an upbeat inflation snapshot after the index's consumer counterpart released Tuesday.
Goods prices were flat last month after falling almost a full percentage point in March. Services prices fell by 0.7%, the biggest drop since the index began in 2009.”
— Axios
"The left, and the leftist hags in comments, refuse to say anything positive about Trumps policies, even when they benefit from them."
It's an automatic response, doesn't matter what it is- could be his choice of what to watch on TV- they'll complain about anything he says or does.
Obama's tarrific. Biden's tarifferent. Trump's tarrifying.
Comments about everything except the prospect of jobs for middle class Americans and driving down the deficit.
Libs are fundamentally unserious about anything except their pet obsessions--socialism, climate change, and abortion.
I've always argued that fighting Trump on everything was the dooming path for the Democrats. That man is not ideological. He's persuadable. The Dems did it to themselves.
The people running the Democrat racket hate Americans. They are using the skin-suit of the party to loot what they can, and destroy what they can't loot. They intend to prosper in a future in which we are not here.
My lovely wife has been noticing pushback from female fashion consumers against fashion influencers for many months now, way prior to this pathetic NYT attempt to frame the trend in crude political terms. I interpret it as a reluctance to just blindly follow the dictates of the "experts" (a trend that's gaining steam in so many other aspects of daily life).
Influencers: You need to stop wearing skinny jeans.
Consumers: Like hell we do.
Influencers: ?
It's an automatic response, doesn't matter what it is- could be his choice of what to watch on TV- they'll complain about anything he says or does.
One of the weirdest TDS episodes of the last Trump presidency --which is saying something-- was the "Gorilla Television" thing.
Even one of the deliberate 4chan pranks that was swallowed hook, line, and sinker by the dementedly hate-filled Left (for example, the "OK" sign being a white supremacist dog-whistle) seems inadequate to explain such an absurdity.
The people running the Democrat racket hate Americans. They are using the skin-suit of the party to loot what they can, and destroy what they can't loot. They intend to prosper in a future in which we are not here.
"Prosper" is the wrong word to use here. They're hyenas who intend to pick the carcass clean, after which they will starve to death right alongside everyone else in New Zimbabwe.
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