> "This note's key finding is that the reduction in interest and tax expenses is responsible for a full one-third of all profit growth for S&P 500 nonfinancial firms over the prior two-decade period"

Even if accurate, where is the other 2/3 coming from? You'd think the primary issue would be more explicitly noted. As far as China, their escape from famine-level poverty took place well before the neoliberal outsourcing program adopted China as one of its preferred sweatshop zones (along with Mexico, Indonesia, India, Philippines, Bangladesh, Honduras, etc.) - it really began with importation of ammonia fertilizer factories in the 1970s under the Nixon agreements, which really ended the famine era. The big change wrt the USA and China took place in 2000-2001, with WTO membership. While NAFTA had already been gutting the US manufacturing sector for the past half-decade, the explosion took off after that (just look at any major box store and count the items with 'made in China' labels).

Fundamentally, the neoliberal project is all about 'liberating' international pools of capital from the restrictions (tariffs, sourcing requirements, capital transfer fees, etc.) imposed by nation-states, as a means of putting more and more wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands. It's profoundly anti-democratic in nature, and should be ended.