Sure that's a factor, but people discount how much 1940-1980 was a historical anomaly for the US. Virtually every advanced industrial economy with which we comp

Sure that's a factor, but people discount how much 1940-1980 was a historical anomaly for the US. Virtually every advanced industrial economy with which we competed had their industrial base leveled and colonial empires in full retreat. They then spent 1950s-1970s rebuilding. Then China came online as an industrial power in the 1980s-2000s. By 2000 the scale of competition on cost and/or quality with our industrial might was at a scale we had not seen in generations.