Because Americans are too rich and manufacturing is too cheap. If any of those changes it's a different story, but that's unlikely to happen.

I think there is a bit more nuance. US manufacturing jobs are never coming back. If you look at the stats, US manufacturing output continues to set records. Yes, the US is second to China (has been since ~2010), but that was bound to happen on population/demographics alone.

Unemployment is at 4%, there's no reserve army of labor that can be mobilized to make flashlights and sew t-shirts for $3/hr.

Anyways, I hope you're looking foward to prices for everything going up.

The folks who voted because of the price of eggs are not going to be happy. And midterm elections are next year.

They didn’t really care about egg prices.

Could be a thing? Perhaps people might start caring about product durability and stop buying cheap shit that goes in a landfill because the producers only care about shelf appeal.

This is my hope, too. But also I fear the transition is going to be ugly. Personally I feel lucky that I’m not just starting out my life — I already have high quality stuff.

But then we can promote immigration from poorer neighbouring countries to pick up the work. Oh wait...