The "good old days" were a time when every factory in the world other than America's had just been destroyed in a massive world wide war. That's not happening again. We are never returning to "blue collar american workers create most industrial products the world consumes" and so we are never returning to massive demand for unskilled American workers. Even if the US completely bans imports low skill workers still wouldn't have the advantage they did in the post war era because every other country will continue to import cheap goods from china instead of expensive american ones.
Sure, that's probably true. But can we get back to "blue collar American workers create must industrial products a nation of 350 million people consumes?" Maybe we will have fewer TVs and fewer cars, and raspberries will cost $5 a quart because we'll be paying American-born workers to make everything and harvest everything. But if that gives everyone something to do and flattens the social hierarchy, that would be better.
You're getting downvoted by people who don't understand the difference between relatively poorer (which they won't be) and materially poorer (which they will be without cheap junk from overseas).
You're really optimistic. I do see a low but non-zero chance that some tensions between china/india/russia/middleeast with each other or someone else escalate into a wiping out of lots of factories, one way or the other.
Funny you should say that. I've seen an opinion in the wild that the USA saw German industry as a threat and thus blowing the pipelines was hitting multiple birds with one stone. The consequent energy policy between USA and Germany further penalises German industry.
> That's not happening again. We are never returning to "blue collar american workers create most industrial products the world consumes" and so we are never returning to massive demand for unskilled American workers
