Ah, but do you remember what I said about America's competitive advantages?
America can't compete on wages, but wages are not the most significant cost component for thousands of products and services.
But where America does enjoy advantages - such as the fuel cost disparity you mention - it's being thrown away.
That fuel cost disparity isn't as much as it could be - and therefore isn't decisive in bringing work back to the US because of the uplift attached by aging refineries (aging due to EPA rules), Ethanol blends (EPA rules) and fuel taxes (sheer bloody-minded Government).
This is why Eagle Diesel is so exciting. Extremely cheap energy in America's heartland. It has the potential to change everything. If anything can bring industry back to the US DESPITE the EPA, Obamacare, etc, etc it is America's natural gas revolution.
The Left - who I feel I should mention are not our friends - are doing their damnedest to stamp out fracking before America shakes loose from their control.
Energy prices can certainly help. But they aren’t likely to offset the wage differential. The wage differential is 1:100 and affects 30% of the product cost of the manufactured goods we have left.
Energy is 16% of our GDP. And probably most of that is consumer usage for homes and car gasoline. I bet energy costs aren’t 5% of most product costs. So yah, you manage to cut energy costs 10%, which means you’ll lower product costs 0.5%. Offshore to China and lower product costs 29%.
Nothing compares to the wage differential.