“This just doesn’t smell conspiracy-worthy.”
The conspiracy involves the fact that our jobs have been shipped there (along with the incomes) because there are 1 billion+ consumers there (and 1 billion+ in neighboring India), and there is simply no way we can manufacture here with only 300 million consumers (with increasingly crappy jobs). Even leaving our borders open isn’t drawing enough people; there is no reason to make anything here anymore, and as a result there is no reason to try selling here either (since disposable income for most people disappeared years ago). We have traded positions with Red China, working for sustenance while they build a middle class in the same manner we did 60 years ago.
It is actually a creepy thing to behold.
I bought a BRAND NEW 1995 Jeep Cherokee. Maintained it well.
The assholes cheaped out by using silicone instead of a valve cover gasket. So needless to say one day the oil started leaking out the valve cover. Cooked the seals one day when it overheated.
Now with a 2005 Liberty, ALL the windows fell down due to a disintegrated CHEAP plastic piece that connects the glass to the mechanism. Suction cups hold up all the windows.
NEVER BUY A JEEP PRODUCT ! ! !
A couple points.
A market of 300 million is nothing to sneeze at and we have not sunk to the level of the Chinese [2/3 the GDP with 4 times the population] yet. That's 17% per capita of ours.
The Chinese economic juggernaut has been wildly exaggerated.
Don't ignore that the Germans, the Japanese, and the Italians are moving production of their vehicles over here. They have created tens of thousands of jobs from Indiana through the Deep South.
Now, that is not to say that I'm sanguine about our economic future. Taxes are too high, monetary inflation is ruinous to business calculation, and Obama's policies are stifling investment in expansion.
But those are all fixable. There is nothing necessary or inevitable in our seeming economic decline. It is -- all of it -- a result of meddling government policies and it can be reversed.
Whether it will or not, I can't say.