A long article that does little to provide any insight into how we can solve this problem.
“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.” """
If that's the sort of existence we'd have to face for bringing those jobs back to the US, I'm not sure I could envision many Americans doing it – and, I, personally, couldn't expect that sort of availability and devotion.
I'll even go so far as to put my own moralistic spin on it – if that's the cost to humanity, I don't want my iPhone made more cheaply... but that may just be me.
We can strip away pensions, insurance, environmental regulations, unions, OSHA, and every other advantage the U.S. workforce retains. Or we can add some friction to offshoring and free trade.
The former approach means that we'll lose our stronger buying power and eventually become a less attractive market. The latter means there's less profit to be made and we'll become a less attractive market.
I personally favor the latter approach because retaining our buying power means we're less likely to be shocked by rising energy and food costs down the road, fewer people will be injured and out of work in a system with no safety net, less garbage and pollution gets pumped into our environment, etc.
But right now it feels like we're going halfway down the former road, chipping away at our workers' infrastructure while still remaining uncompetitive on the world market... and continuing to reduce friction on trade.
For some reason, the broader socioeconomic discussion the western world should be having has been condensed to creating jobs. But jobs aren’t a binary thing; and they’re means to an end, not the end goal (an equitable society in which the average person can be a member of the middle class).
I get the sense that “average” is no longer middle class unless you really loosen the definition of middle class.