Relocate them where? American's are incredibly mobile in my experience, from going to college in another state, to having families sprawled across different states. If it were as simple as moving, people would be doing it.
> You could cut regulations in order to entice companies to come back...
Times have changed and we need to adjust to it. USA Inc makes a huge amount of money. In the past that required a lot of people in the workforce. Today it doesn't require nearly as many but we're making even more money! So the solution is not to remove regulation to have more people taken advantage of in dangerous factories and so we can pollute our environment. That does not benefit the Americans who live here who do not have jobs.
We need to come to an acceptance of the changing times and decide what it means to still have a society. Either we agree that we (USA Inc) make more than enough money for everyone in the country to have a good life (which we do), and work out the redistribution problem (which could take many forms), or we continue as we are with a whole lot of fellow citizens suffering needlessly.
As a foreigner living in the USA I'm sad to say that I both agree wholeheartedly with this comment and realise that it can never come to pass.
The entire political landscape of the US is built on ideological caricatures like the strong, independent, free American and the demon of socialism (or anything that even vaguely represents it).
The unfortunate consequence of this is a society sorely lacking in social concern with massive impediments to developing core infrastructure. Of course this benefits the ruling class who don't have to spend money on developing facilities that could benefit the lives of Americans.
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2017/...
That story seems to be told to every nation's workforce, and so I'd be suspicious about that.
What we saw in 2000 and 2006 was a revival in the tech industry. It was big if you were in those areas, but minuscule outside. And the downturn in 2001 and 2008 was bad for all.
The cycle of boom/bust is only going to get quicker as capitalism goes on. Marx saw that in when, the 1850's? Not that Marxist Communism is good but his major contribution is that of critic. According to the boom/bust cycles, we should be starting one shortly, if not already in one.
* Stop doing trade deals with countries that have poor environmental and labor standards.
* Ramp up fiscal spending and hire hundreds of thousands people to fix and build infrastructure. If the automation revolution really is coming it will be overwhelmingly deflationary, so loosening the purse strings is the most prudent course of action.
The problem isn't that there aren't straightforward solutions. The problem is that those solutions are threatening to American oligarchs.
I often wonder if this was actually true, or something invented by nostalgia. For example, I often hear that in the good ole' days a college degree was a guarantee of a good job, but this was never true. You still had to get a degree in something useful, and you had to pass a job interview, etc.
For example, when I went to college in the 70's, it was common knowledge that you could not get a job with an AY (Astronomy) degree. The AY students tended to be double majors - AY for fun, and EE to get a job. I as well selected courses that I hoped would maximize my job prospects and flexibility.
Some of my fellow students were fairly unemployable, despite having a degree.
Furthermore, the job market, demographics, locations, everything about jobs, has been constantly shifting throughout American history. Constant upheaval is the norm.
Meanwhile, other nations have a more flexible workforce that are cheaper to pay for roughly the same productivity in many cases.
Unfortunately there is no easy solution for this problem. For the people located in areas where jobs have entirely vanished you would have to relocate the population but that goes against the dream. You could cut regulations in order to entice companies to come back, but then you're selling the lives and well-being of the American people for jobs that Americans might not even do (see: labor shortages in the farm industries).
America will need to find a way to handle this and fast as automated cars enter the market and cut another huge swathe out of the market. The difference there though is that you can't blame other races or countries for taking your jobs.