My understanding: the US was a manufacturing center as a first mover after war economy and others being crippled and indebted by war. Then Germany and Japan cau

My understanding: the US was a manufacturing center as a first mover after war economy and others being crippled and indebted by war. Then Germany and Japan caught up resulting in the collapse of the bretton woods system (1970s) which then changed the US from a manufacturing center to a financial center through the USD as a global reserve currency. The hegemony is built on top of the dollar, today. That’s the moat. (Well, and military might.) Since then, to say China has ”caught up” with the US at peak time in the 50s-60s would be an understatement. On the contrary today US manufacturing is a nostalgic pipe dream only - not just due to labor prices but lack of institutional knowledge and experience relevant in a completely different global economy. Another threat seems to be the financialization of the few remaining companies that are left like GE and Boeing. Even when there are giant advantages from high barrier of entry, the pressure from quarterly numbers on a graph squeezes and dilutes engineering excellence to McKinsey style accounting tricks that ultimately eats itself from the inside. Another way of putting it is that you can’t fiscal policy yourself to the finish line – the incentives and preconditions need to be right too. The current elite (especially tech) is backed by finance and won’t even consider giving up the smallest of privileges, and as long as you need them to win elections, I don’t see it moving in the direction of less finance and more real & competitive goods and services.