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Our population has more than doubled since WWII, and our manufacturing base has not kept pace. Almost all of the clothes I wear, from shoes to shirts, is made somewhere else. Almost all of the nails and screws and other hardware I buy, and the tools to use them, are made somewhere else. I can't find an American made fish hook. The American steel industry is a shadow of its former self. I have bought an American made coffee maker, the only one left.

Prior to WWI we supplied all our own petroleum needs. Now we import over 70%. The $800 billion trade deficit is partly the result of oil imports, but not all of it. A lot of it comes from buying products made abroad that used to be made here. We can't export wedding planners, personal trainers, and so on. Until we start exporting as much as we import, and move to a balance in the current account, and until the government gets its budget under control, our standard of living will decline.

"Almost all of the clothes I wear, from shoes to shirts, is made somewhere else."

And yet, you are not naked.

Hmmmm......

< / comparative advantage>

The manufacturing base is measured in the percentage of the GDP, relative population has no meaning in that figure.

You should look harder. Lots of clothes (which aren’t actually manufacturing but what the heck) are still made here. And power tools, and coffee makers, and cars and everything else under the sun. Because of relative costs we tend to gravitate towards the higher quality/ cost section of manufacturing, but it’s still there.

We’ll never export as much as we import because we consume more than we make, and quite frankly we consume more than we CAN make. Import imbalance has nothing to do with whether or not we manufacture. People have been saying for over 30 years that we need trade balance or our standard of living will decline, the funny part is our standard of living has skyrocketed during that time, and in fact most of the times in the last century we’ve had positive trade balance our standard of living DID decline.

The facts are quite simple:
we manufacture a lot
our standard of living is climbing by any and all reasonable measurements
the doom and gloomers have been 100% wrong with all those lines you parrot for decades