So what solutions do conservatives here have for making things cheaper?

The problem isn't making things cheaper - general inflation tends to make that very difficult. When you take the idiocy in Iran out of the picture, both sides do things to depress wages, which makes things progressively less affordable and sharpens wealth inequality.

Republicans erode any legal framework that gives workers leverage in a negotiation. Democrats undermine that leverage by supporting the import of workers from countries with much lower standards of living, who will eagerly accept a wage and the commensurate lifestyle that American workers would balk at as a step down.

And then there's the stuff that both parties support - the dismantling of protectionist measures worldwide and the dragging of the supply chain through countries with woefully insufficient regulations all around - both workers rights and quality control. Probably the most horrifying example of this is the offshoring of generic pharmaceutical manufacturing to India.

Even Trump's attempts to tackle the offshoring problem feel like they're just for show and quickly dialed back - its become a deep, structural problem without a quick fix.

Solution to make things cheaper is to end homelessness and rent system and replace it with government sponsored housing. Because a lot of wage goes to paying rent.

Giving more tax cuts to the wealthy?

This is silly. Either you taxed the rich too much or not enough. If the rich aren't making enough supply for your country to keep the prices low, you know what the answer is.

If you want to tax the rich a lot and still force them to create supply when they would rather produce less, then you would have to create communist gulags to force people to work when they don't want to. Russia did this in the Cold War era. You can have the carrot or the stick, but rarely both.

Alternatively, the USA leftistas could do what Europe does, and tax the poor. That usually gets the population motivated enough to stop electing total retards.

....workers rights....

There should be one and only one enforceable worker's right. The right to walk away at any time without retaliation. 

But as you said, and was echoed by César Chávez, importing a near limitless oversupply of labor makes that right near meaningless. So when you have an oversupply of labor, and an undersupply of goods produced. Only the blessed few really profit.

Shoresy wrote:

....workers rights....

There should be one and only one enforceable worker's right. The right to walk away at any time without retaliation. 

But as you said, and was echoed by César Chávez, importing a near limitless oversupply of labor makes that right near meaningless. So when you have an oversupply of labor, and an undersupply of goods produced. Only the blessed few really profit.

Good to know. Next time a recession hits and the job market contracts I'll start demanding blowjobs from all my subordinates.

Let them know you have Jose and Raul waiting with wet lips if they leave your employ.

So wait, you for real think giving tax cuts to the wealthy would make life more affordable for everyone else?

It really depends. Does your country need more supply of goods, or do you have plenty?

We could always use more supply and that'd help drive down costs

But aren't tax cuts an inefficient blunt tool? What does it do? If Microsoft gets a tax cut they just buy back stocks and drive up stocks and bank accounts. If anything that could drive up demand and costs just as much as it might help drive u p supply.

You'd have to lower taxes and corporate subsidies across the board, so Microsoft's competitors have a chance.

The goal isn't to make Microsoft bigger. The goal is to make it easier for the next Microsoft to exist. Getting rid of the corporate subsidies will be near impossible because only 1% of the voters even know it's an entrenched and established money laundering operation. I don't mind Microsoft spending Microsoft's money bribing politicians. I mind Microsoft spending money that was first transferred from taxpayers through government favoritism and subsidies. That's just straight-up money laundering, where politicians steal from the poor and give to themselves. Taxpayers fund the subsidies. Corporations recycle part of the gains into lobbying and political donations. Politicians then protect the system that benefits both parties. It's a self-licking ice cream cone cycle where wealth is transferred from ordinary taxpayers to politically connected interests.

Reduce demand

Reduce need

Reduce expectation

What are the chances of that happening?

But what are the rights solutions?

The right’s solution is to do exactly what they did to bolster Trump into office twice: put democrats in office to fix the problems with the economy, then take office as those benefits are starting to be felt. Worked the first time because Trump mostly let the economy do its thing, didn’t work the second because he decided to implement his agenda. Let’s see what the third time brings.

Ok, on a more serious note…

The right doesn’t have any solutions, not because they can’t think of anything, but because they very idea of solving problems such as affordability is fundamentally at odds with their core ideology. To understand it we have to go back to Ronald Reagan’s inaugural speech where he said those famous words: “government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem”.

That one line encapsulates everything the modern right is built on. When they decry socialism, they’re not actually talking about socialism, hell they couldn’t even define it. What they’re really criticizing is the idea that government has any role in solving any of our problems at all.

This ideology is impenetrable with logic. I recall back in 2008 during the crash when everyone was asking what should we do to stop the economy from tanking, many of the right were saying we should do nothing at all, because the free market will correct itself. You see, that’s the thing; if government intervenes it’s bad by definition, if it’s the free market it’s good by definition because it occurred naturally and will always work itself out. There’s no getting past that with them.

This not only explains why they’re so obsessed with tax cuts (a it’s the only thing they could possibly “accomplish”), but it also explains how we end up with an absurd figure like Trump. If your entire political ethos is that government is bad, well it’s pretty damn difficult then to sell yourself come election time as to why you should continue to be in power within the government. So people turn to outsiders, reality TV stars and former athletes who have absolutely no idea how anything works get propped up, because by this point, all people want is someone who’s not government. So big words become associated with dishonesty and someone with the vocabulary of a third grader now sounds like “one of us”. It was the inevitable path.

Libertarian here

Maybe start deregulating shit

For example, medications cost more because our patent system is abused by companies who will slightly change the chemical composition just to renew their patent.

How exactly would deregulation stop drug makers from abusing the patent process? Doesn't their ability to nickel and dime it mean we need more regulation? You're not radically proposing doing away with patents are ya?

I am. Intellectual property is not a real, tangible thing. It is a concept and a failed one.

The problem started because of regulation. In what world would that be grounds for even more regulation? All that will do is stifle competition, allowing corporations to hold onto their monopolies and oligopolies while the barrier to entry for competitors rises.

Furthermore, the greater a state's regulatory power, the greater the incentive for corrupt, controlling individuals to worm their way in, and the greater the incentive for companies to buy regulatory power (lest a competitor do so).

How do inventors get fairly compensated for their ideas? Wouldn't doing away with patents just make the rich richer when they can steal ideas? Do you have the same views of trademarks and things like books and movies and songs? How do artists get compensated and incentives to create?

See above

What do you suppose changed that caused someone like trump? We have had considered conservatives for centuries but Trump is an incompetent dysfunctional demagogue. I think maybe it's that affordability and the plight of normal people got so bad people wanted an outsider so they chose the one who is a con man that talks big but can't measure up substantively. The masses follow hopes and dreams and vague ideas of getting rid of waste fraud and abuse hoping to be able to help everyone else that way but all they get is chaos cause Trump is incompetent

Cheaper is relative to affordability and so the only solution is to increase your purchasing power...As it is you are a part of a system wherein the price of commodity has a consistent inflationary trend...Social alternatives come loaded with all sorts of other downsides.

If the USA adopted a constitutional amendment restricting the government to provide only 10 public services, what 10 services would you pick and why?

The masses follow hopes and dreams and vague ideas of getting rid of waste fraud and abuse hoping to be able to help everyone else that way but all they get is chaos cause Trump is incompetent

That’s the part I was really getting at. To the question of how did we get here, there’s no question that anger at the system is the key to all of this. It’s not working for the vast majority of us, so people want something different. That’s half the story. But the other half is; how the hell do people look at Trump and think that’s the kind of difference they want?

This is where I go back to the Ronald Reagan philosophy. Here’s a simple question - why do societies have governments? Why do we elect representatives and have debates?

The whole point of representative government is so that society has a means by which it can solve its problems. So when Reagan comes out and adopts the core philosophy that “government is the problem”, it’s fundamentally incoherent. And incoherence leads to absurdities.

You can argue that there’s too much government In some areas or that we need to scale back in some ways, that’s fine. But the idea that government itself, as an institution, is inherently bad… then nothing it does could ever be considered good. And that naturally extends to the people running it. So as a Republican, you can’t run on your accomplishments. You can’t tell people what you did to improve their lives, other than to destroy the government you lead. So now when nothing works, that’s good, which is of course absurd.

And now everyone who is part of the government is bad too. So when we think of a politician, what comes to mind? What traits do we tend to expect from our political leadership? We expect them to be intelligent, we expect them to be mature, educated, caring, to behave with decency, to be serious, etc.

Enter Trump. Since we expect all of these things from politicians, and politicians are bad, Trump being the opposite makes him good. So his stupidity, immaturity, ignorance, vileness and indecency, unseriousness… all get rebranded as “not a politician”, which is good. So now almost literally, bad is good, up is down, left is right… it’s all reversed. Science is propaganda, but people like RFK are the source of truth. Journalists who go to tremendous lengths to vet their stories are fake news, but we listen to Joe Rogan.

When you build your foundation on an absurdity, there’s no where else to go. You can fight for a while to reconcile the obvious issues within your views, as the Republican Party did for years, but at some point it will all come crashing down, and I think that’s what we’re seeing.

Medications are a luxury and deregulated shit would be messy.

Governor = AI....' A lawn mower governor acts like a cruise control for your engine. It balances opposing forces—governor springs pulling the throttle open and internal engine weights pushing it closed—to keep the engine running at a safe, stable speed (typically around 3,600 RPM) regardless of how thick the grass is. [1, 2, 3] '...

What we have with MAGA republicans is a failure moral integrity to place governor on their immoral actions.

Want lower prices then SHRED Obamas treaty with Iran and along with Israel begin bombing them and threaten Karg Island with invasion of USA soldiers.

MAGA republicans are worse than just being dumb, there morals are lacking cause of nuttin-ness in the head.

why do societies have governments? Why do we elect representatives and have debates?

If the United States adopted a constitutional amendment restricting the Federal government to provide only 10 broad public services, essentially overhauling Article I, Section 8, and recognizing that the Constitution was originally designed to define and limit Federal power while leaving the overwhelming balance of public services to the states, what 10 Federal services would you pick and why?

Anyone is welcome to solve this riddle.

There can be no solution as long as govt is allowed to print worthless money figuratively speaking and spend beyond its means. Worthless money = inflation. See the Weimar Republic. The US is in the final stages. A total economic collapse and reset is the only solution.

what 10 Federal services would you pick and why?

I would advocate to overturn the amendment.

What the founding fathers intended with regards to the size of government is irrelevant to what the country needs 250 years later. The latter is a discussion for sophisticated people representing their constituents to try and figure out. That is the whole point of what the constitution sought to create.

Lol, the point of the Constitution is to destroy itself and all the checks on a tyrannical government?

I'm assuming you meant overturning any amendment since Article 1, Section 8 isn't an Amendment.

I respectfully have to disagree with what you think the purpose of the US Constitution is.

The purpose of the Constitution isn't: to "Solve Problems."

The purpose is: "How do you prevent the public from voting in tyranny?"

Enjoy your revolution, Comrade.

the point of the Constitution is to destroy itself

Do you ever get tired of arguing with yourself?