Over the years since the WTO came into effect (and even prior), laying off high priced US labor and putting up factories overseas has been the norm.
The US has a small manufacturing base, and has become a country that imports pretty much everything. Even our call centers are overseas.
It seems our country has become a service only nation. We don't make things, we only service them. But with more and more things becoming disposable, we have fewer things to service. We can serve food and ring you up at the clothing store, but we don't make the clothes anymore.
The only ones making real money are company owners and executives. Sure there are exceptions, but the numbers are getting smaller and have been for years by percentage.

So what could help? For one, I believe corporations should not have personhood. Corporations have a sole purpose, to profit. If they have personhood and the right to lobby the government, they will use that to increase their profits in any way they can regardless of human life. Also, the WTO should be abandoned completely as well as the NAFTA. Each country wishing to trade with the US should make an individual agreement which should protect the rights of their workers no less than our laws protect our wrokers. They should be given the opportunity to prosper and make a decent living in a safe work environment. Even if money does not go all to the US middle class, if money is distributed more evenly throughout the world, it will be better for the world economy. What is better for the world economy will be better for the US. Also, Corporations should be liable for any pollution or harm they cause to persons or the environment. While this will cut into profits, it will help the planet sustain life longer.

Finally there is the subject of the cost of living. Living in the US is expensive, and lower pay and less jobs means less people can have a decent standard of living. As the Housing market has become an investor market, driving prices up beyond the reach of the average person, the housing market should be altered substantially. If a home in one area of the US can cost 40,000 dollars, and 450,000 in another, this determines too much where people can own homes and where they cannot. However it does not determine where they can live, because they must live near their employment. While I do not suggest government housing, perhaps a freeze on the housing market and heavy taxes imposed on investment properties that inflate the prices of homes quickly.

We need jobs, and we need a lower cost of living. However I don't see a real effective and easy solution.

If you want to spur manufacturing, you need to do what we did before.

Inovate.

We need to find the next plastics of microchips or assembly ine or robotics etc.

Then you have to have a workfoce educated enough to make this stuff.

Govt changed the depreciation rules that make R&D functions more costly and subject to too much risk for companied to pursue them as they once did.

Schools ? Oh hell, they are a mess thanks to unions.

The symptom (manufacturing jobs) will improve if you repair the problem.

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Socialism doesn't create a rising tide that lifts all boats. It drains the lake and teaches the boat riders not to help themselves by rowing.

Jesus loves you, allah wants you dead

"Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others."

Ayn Rand

+1 That's the way we've always stayed out front. Right around the time of Reagan, we became a can't-do society and began to long slide backwards. "We can't afford..." has been the biggest tragedy of our modern march to progress.

It's tragic really.

Yeah, "We can't afford" has to be one of the lamest excuses ever consider the things we find money for.

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Is our children learning? -George W. Bush

"I think—tide turning—see, as I remember—I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of—it's easy to see a tide turn—did I say those words?"—Washington, D.C., June 14, 2006

"[T]he illiteracy level of our children are appalling."—Washington, D.C., Jan. 23, 2004

its not a lost cause at all, but the gov. whom doesn't want to acknowledge where jobs come from is a lost cause. They will clap themselves on the back for a gdp of 3.5%, built on tax dollars we don't have to spend, and the unemployment will be pushed off the front pages for a few days so they can bask in their borrowing from the future to sell cars today , and some dribbling of manufacturing due to deficit spending, MASSIVE deficit spending, yet here we are at 9.8% and rising.
BUT won't acknowledge that this rope will run out and without giving industry and consumers more money to use as THEY SEE FIT, not more ENTITLEMENTS, nothing will improve, jobs will languish and we’ll live a European type decade were we will get used to 8-10% unemployment and call it an improvement or the new paradigm, but we’ll have ‘free’ health care by gumb…..

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"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

take it a bit farther, WHY can we not afford ?

answer is that a project had to demonstrate ROI in 5 years vs the previous 10 years to to tax law change.

that raising of the bar cut the legs off many ideas which had an indirect effect of allowing this innovation to take place elsewhere.

now we're getting to tragic.

__________________
Socialism doesn't create a rising tide that lifts all boats. It drains the lake and teaches the boat riders not to help themselves by rowing.

Jesus loves you, allah wants you dead

"Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others."

Ayn Rand

The numbers don't back you up. After Reagan we became a can-do society. It took almost 3 decades to destroy that spirit. I have to assume you aren't old enough to remember the 70's.

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Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. ---P. J. O'Rourke

You'd be dead wrong. I was old enough to vote in 1973. What numbers are you using?

Reagan ushered in the era, for example, when we could no longer afford to provide government services without charging an entrance fee. In the case of the National Parks, until Reagan, we'd always prided ourselves on the idea that anyone could enjoy them, no matter if they were poor or not.

Less is the hallmark of his tenure. He wrapped it up in a pretty bow of "self-reliance" but really what he meant is, "I'm giving your government services to rich guys. For you -- tinkle down!"

What numbers? Well, high unemployment, high inflation, high interest rates, stagflation. A military that couldn't seem to shoot straight, having to cannibalize aircraft to keep a minimum in the air. A stock market that couldn't keep ahead of inflation, as Carter himself said, "a general malaise."

Reagan brought real hope and change.

As far as the five bucks it costs to enter a National Park, if you can't afford it, I'm sure we'll pass the hat.

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Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. ---P. J. O'Rourke

And BTW, entrance fees to National Parks started in 1908.

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Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. ---P. J. O'Rourke

Pretty vague list that could easily be applied to many eras including the Reagan years. Got any actual data to support your claim of what the data says? No. I'm pretty familiar with the history rewrite that propelled Repubicans into the bush years. Reagan was the guy who decided that everything has a price, that government is best when it does nothing and that rich people, rather than the middle class, were the engine of progress.

Hence, the vast redistribution of wealth upwards, redistribution of wealth, and the S&L crisis.

I'll ignore your snotty close because I'm trying to learn to be less reactive to childishness.

The Recreation Fees and Improvements Act of 1982 the end of incidental and affordable access fees and of mostly free parks.

Ah, more Reagan worship. "Real" hope and change? You mean like doing exactly the opposite of what he actually espoused? Like growing the federal gov't to record levels of scope, size and power? Like massively increasing deficits? S&L crisis? One could go on and on.

What Reagan brought, by any rational analysis, was exactly what he brought to Hollywood: sheer feel-good cosmeticism.

Oh, and it's $20 to get into, say, Yosemite.

In 1908 it cost 6 bucks to enter Mount Rainier National Park, equivalent to 200 bucks or more today.

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Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. ---P. J. O'Rourke

A '93 GAO report said that our National Parks could be self-sufficient if the money stayed in each park's budget instead of going to the general fund. That's probably true, as Rangers have no incentive to collect money they can't keep in their budget.

I see no reason NYC subway riders who will never enter a National Park should subsidize those who enjoy them (as I do).

And btw, $80 a year allows unlimited access to every National Park. Pretty good deal. Again, if the $80 puts you in the poor house, perhaps your neighbors will be good enough to lend you a hand out.

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Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. ---P. J. O'Rourke