Surely production itself will just move to whichever location has the lowest total cost for a specified quality of output? R&D gives you IP ownership and the right to manufacture where you want. If workers' pay drops significantly in the US then it will once again become a competitive place to manufacture. We just need to lose this concept that Western workers somehow 'need' to be highly paid because they are Western.
Several posts cite the cost of labor regarding manufacturing. I'd like to add, where are you going to build a plant to manufacture anything? Most places, new manu is zoned out. This leaves existing industrial areas no one will touch because of existing brown field liability. GE in Schenectady had perhaps a dozen under used buildings that were torn down to lower their assesment. Imo, in the past these buildings would be idle till some future opportunity came along. Apparently the carrying costs outweigh any future opportunity.
That's the problem. Our concept of "middle class wages" is what, starting at $50,000/year? That's $25/hr. Yes, we might have manufacturing jobs at $8/hr which might be competitive with manufacturing overseas @ $1/hr (reduced cost for transporting materials and/or finished goods, + higher productivity here). But that doesn't solve our "middle class" problem. But if you're going to make only $8/hr, one low paying job is as good as another.... might as well serve popcorn at AMC theaters or be a Wal-Mart greeter.
The only logical answer to that is that the serving popcorn jobs will see their pay rates drop to below $8 per hour to reflect the fact that manufacturing is harder and takes more skill. What is 'middle class' anyway? What's the point of earning a large salary if a large amount of excess savings and wealth is fuelling an asset price boom that puts buying a house beyond the means of even your 'middle class' salary?
The definition of "middle class" is at least partly semantic. What it means to be middle-class is that you have some escess money above the subsistence level of the semantically defined "poor" or poverty level. That excess money can be spent on a higher quality life style or saved and invested (or some of each). "Excess savings and wealth" are NOT what fuels a housing asset boom/bubble. That's from cheap/excess money and credit. America is not yet ready to accept "popcorn server makes $3 less per hour than $8/hr. manufacturing because manufacturing is harder work". America is not prepared to downscale AT ALL. Yet we will. We've got no choice. It will be foisted upon us one way or another.
Do you not notice what has been going on to government & consumer debt? The country has been running on credit for decades. That's where the jobs came from. You also conveniently omit the growing welfare cases and the engineering employment numbers which do not show the real picture. It is different this time and it has been different each time.
It's a combination of the two. A lot of people just get bored having all their cash on deposit. And there's a whole investment industry out there happy to alleviate their boredom