” At some point, it will be cheaper to hire Americans to manufacture stuff and jobs will come back here. “
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Flawed assumption.
By that point, it will not be Americans with strict profit motives, making the decisions as to where to make things and what to buy.
It will be the very people who are now, busy taking our jobs away from us, strategically.
We will not get a second chance.
This is it.
I fear the outside world will bask in the glow of schadenfreude, as we thrash around. This might explain why the 'Rats are getting more vicious, so they can abandon ship with bigger bags of loot.
Suppose Americans do not have sufficient income to purchase Chinese made products after the scenario you say sets in, what happens next? Will we sit on our hands doing nothing? The profit motive will make the entrepreneurial types create products. Even if they have no capital, they will do it using labor. That is the nature of the free-market.