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

Americans need to get over their view of “Asia” as being about making shoes. When I was working in engineering in the early aughts, we mocked the Chinese as being able only to copy American technology. Today, China is competitive with or ahead of America in key technology areas, including nuclear power, AI, EVs, and batteries.

We need to anticipate a future where China is equal to America on a per capita basis, but four times bigger. Is that a world where “Designed by Apple in California, Made in China” still makes sense? What will be America’s competitive edge in that scenario?

What seems most likely to me in the future is that the US will find itself in the same position the UK is in now. Dominating finance and services won’t mean anything when both the IP and the physical products are being produced somewhere else.

> US will find itself in the same position the UK is in now

The thing is .. there's a point here, but it's not at all tied in with physical products. People are obsessed with one side of the ledger while refusing to see the other. Most of the stuff the UK is struggling with (transport, healthcare, energy) are "state capacity" issues. Things where the state is unavoidably involved and having better, more decisive leadership and not getting bogged down in consultations, would make a big difference.

The UK stepped on its own rake because it was obsessed with tiny, already vanished industries like fishing. Fishing is less profitable for the whole UK than Warhammer. It's not actually where we want to be. While real UK manufacture successes (cars, aircraft, satellites, generators, all sorts of high-tech stuff) get completely ignored. Or bogged down in extra export red tape thanks to Brexit.

To improve reality, we have to start from reality, not whatever vision of the past propaganda "news" channels are blathering about.

It’s not rational at all. It’s nostalgia.

I wonder how deeply connected all this politics of nostalgia is to the fact that birth rates have been declining for decades and populations are older.

Given the older population and the country’s history as a bygone empire I bet nostalgia is thicker in England than the US, but US side there sure is a lot of it.

A lot of MAGA is about making the country the way it was when boomers were kids (50s, 60s) to prime age adults (80s to early 90s).

There’s even a hint of genX nostalgia too. A while back I was hearing some IDW type railing about how “woke” killed comedy and it hit me that there’s a strong undercurrent of nostalgia for the 90s when comedy and pop culture were all about being an edgelord. The fact that edgelording is "out" is blamed on "woke" and they lament that "comedy is dead" etc. I'm not sure how much "woke" has to do with it. I think... well... edgelording is just out.

Change reminds people of their mortality and it always generates a backlash. You’re not young anymore.