How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

Isn't that an even more compelling reason to do it, since unemployment is already low? It means more vertical integration, more domestic investment and productive capital.

i think a lot of people are fixating on the market.

I will share a metaphor you can spread.

I run a mile every morning not because it is the most calorie efficient way to get around, nor because it is the most monetarily productive use of my time, but because it keeps my legs strong and me healthy.

It's a good metaphor, but I guess the idea here is that a middle-aged sedentary person has suddenly decided, for his own good, to only eat what he can catch and kill with his bare hands.

My history is not that good, but I have a fondness for the guilded age. Lets look back for wisdom.

Consider a case that was not unique, the growth of iron production in the great lakes area between 1855 and 1865.

In 1855 it was 1000 tons of iron ore. By 1860 it was over 100,000. By 1865 it was a few times greater than that.

Now consider even a single year in there where production is increasing by thousands to tens of thousands of tons. Good business. (The machines used to load and unload those boats and the change in boat designs is awesome by the way. Worth looking up.)

That was early. With much worse technology, and much less capital.

There were crazier deltas in production increase in the 1890's and across the guilded age.

The US natural resources are gigantic. There are 330 million people living there. It has more resources than ever before in history.

Steel and plastic are currently produced in the hundreds of millions of tons per year in the US. That is hardly a middle aged man who cant do a pushup.

With a proper 10 year boom, US production could be exponentially increasing year over year. If it and its people choose it.

A lot of people in the US seem to be envisioning this. It is a really non-abstract vision even for americans of... modest intelligence.

It may be the case that providing the world with banking and facebook, and silicon plans, though possibly much more lucrative than physical production, is just too abstract for the average american to identify with as a positive.

Or it may be the case that physical production is more lucrative than software service export, but that the US government has mismanaged the market constraints in the physical domain and so it just appears to not be the case.

I am not sure which is true. What I do know is that for the average person, the idea of making stuff and trading it is simple to understand, and people like it. Even people who do not make anything identify with this goal. Maybe instead of iron and steel it will be nvidias chips this time around.

I think Americans dont like being the social media export country. Its just not a good future vision you can identify with.