show me the numbers
> what I'm trying to point out is that having a first-class industrial base, with enough experts, well running supply-chains, and so on, is different from eclipsing China in straight to trash gadget output.
Absolutely true! But we're nowhere near able to do the latter, so what's the point in caring?
> social mobility
Unrelated, but this is a misnomer. The correct term would be "economic mobility". Social concerns are necessarily orthogonal (i.e. intersectional) to economic ones. I understand that social mobility is the common term but it's extremely disingenuous when it only intersects with social interests through economic interests.
Economic mobility is also strictly less interesting than wealth disparity—being able to move up the social ladder doesn't matter much if there's still self-aggrandizing ghouls controlling most of the economy and the market fails to represent the public.