> What you forget is that is exactly these inefficiencies that inflate US salaries. You need to make more money just to survive in most US cities, which forces

> What you forget is that is exactly these inefficiencies that inflate US salaries. You need to make more money just to survive in most US cities, which forces companies to increase salaries. I think you are reversing cause and effect here. Wages are not rising because things are expensive-- things instead become expensive because people are "rich" and can afford them. I suspect (not an accusation!) that you would intrinsically like to see the US run healthcare and education in a government controlled way, at-cost, instead of allowing excessive private profits there (which I think is a good idea!). But advocating for such changes in the name of making US manufacturing competitive is dishonest in my opinion, because I absolutely do not see those shrinking the wage-gulf sufficiently for US factories to compete head-on with China. Furthermore, I don't even think you want to be competitive with China in this regard. Having a significant percentage of Americans working in/for factories to produce simple goods for 10$/hour strikes me as a step back, even if you would bundle this with a bunch of positive progressive improvements.