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I'm saying that Americans will not accept the quality-of-life sacrifice of their labor being competitive with the current price of similar labor in Asia. It doesn't matter what the past competitive landscape looked like, as we're never going back to it without market-distorting tariffs, which bring with them their own problems.

Americans will not work for $2-$4/hr which would be required in order for American-made goods to be as cheap as foreign-made goods.

Americans will not pay 3-4X for all their goods to be made in America by people earning American wages.

I guess, to be complete the only other thing that could happen to cause goods to be manufacturable in America would be 3. for the cost of labor in China (and other places with similar textile and industrial capability) to rise to match that of America.



So what did we do in the 1990s?


made do without some things - such as feature phones, and big tv screens.

People lived simpler. They had less material wealth, and was fine with it.

Will people today be the same? Judging by the amount of consumer debt and how much the buy-now-pay-later popularity grew, i dont think so.




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