The reason the US is not competitive is exactly because it doesn't spend the money needed for that. China did it. To be more concrete, if the government spends money to build housing, workers don't need to pay so much to have a home. If the gov spends money on public transportation, workers don't need to buy expensive cars just to get to the job. If it spends money on free health care, then workers don't need to pay for expensive insurance. If the US spent money on (near) free higher education, workers wouldn't need to pay high costs on student loans. These are all items that make the US uncompetitive with other nations.
> The reason the US is not competitive is exactly because it doesn't spend the money needed for that.
You are making some kind of logical jump here that I can not follow. I just listed basically the absolute best that the US could have ever done-- but even in that absolute dream scenario (tax free income for manufactoring workers? I mean in what world do you see something like that ever actually happening?), the US is still not competitive in a direct comparison, because US workers have just no reason to work manufacturing for 10€/hour (when they make ~30/hour right now).
You can stack all the incentives you want-- the gap in wages/standards is so large that apart from straight up paying the difference (in either tariffs or subsidies, and that is a lot of money), you are not going to make US manufacturing competitive in a head-on comparison.
What you forget is that is exactly these inefficiencies that inflate US salaries. You need to make more money just to survive in most US cities, which forces companies to increase salaries.
> What you forget is that is exactly these inefficiencies that inflate US salaries. You need to make more money just to survive in most US cities, which forces companies to increase salaries.
I think you are reversing cause and effect here. Wages are not rising because things are expensive-- things instead become expensive because people are "rich" and can afford them.
I suspect (not an accusation!) that you would intrinsically like to see the US run healthcare and education in a government controlled way, at-cost, instead of allowing excessive private profits there (which I think is a good idea!).
But advocating for such changes in the name of making US manufacturing competitive is dishonest in my opinion, because I absolutely do not see those shrinking the wage-gulf sufficiently for US factories to compete head-on with China.
Furthermore, I don't even think you want to be competitive with China in this regard. Having a significant percentage of Americans working in/for factories to produce simple goods for 10$/hour strikes me as a step back, even if you would bundle this with a bunch of positive progressive improvements.
