I'm not sure there is such a disconnect as you suggest. While value has increased, I might posit that the value is due to the fact that the US focuses on the v

I'm not sure there is such a disconnect as you suggest. While value has increased, I might posit that the value is due to the fact that the US focuses on the value-added side of the equation. So if the US produces cars, it doesn't produce the Daihatsus or the Fiats of the world. They focus on $40K cars. It took me moving to Japan to realise that you can buy a perfectly good car for under $10K. If the bottom falls out, the US may find that there are no customers for their comparative luxury goods and no US citizen willing to work for little enough to be competitive with anything else. I am, of course, an random guy on the internet and my observations are worth slightly less than that, so who knows ;-)