Staying Rich Without Manufacturing Will Be Hard
You can't pay an American worker 20 times as much to make the same product in the same number of hours. The only way to be competitive at 20 times the pay is for each worker to produce 20 times the output, i.e. automation. So what we have is a choice between fewer American manufacturing jobs (automation) or no American manufacturing jobs (outsourcing). People don't want to hear that, but those are the alternatives.And given that, automation is clearly the right answer. Some manufacturing jobs is better than no manufacturing jobs, and more local manufacturing creates more local non-manufacturing jobs in sales, transportation, administration, etc.