["Why does the American worker always get hosed so bad on such a good deal?"]
Typically, because of inappropriate govenment intervention (tax and spend policies) into the macroeconomy that ulitmately creates market (price) distortions and thus hurts the consumers.
You regurgitate textbook theory of which we are all well aware.
Your little fish and huts story was entertaining. But tell me. In this free trade world what exactly is America specializing in that can't be done by Ram or Chan or Felix overseas at much cheaper cost ? The more dependent Joe Sixpack becomes on borrowing money to buy cheap imports that he can no longer make for himself, the sooner the day of reckoning when the dollar will no longer be worth anything.
In the context of a global glut of labor THERE IS NOTHING THAT AMERICA CAN SPECIALIZE IN THAT WILL SUPPORT THE AMERICAN STANDARD OF LIVING. Or do you flatter yourself with the notion that all Americans are smarter than all Chinese or Indians ?