alt Hacker News> Modernizing manufacturing so that each worker is far more productive and we can compete with the world
How does this not correspond directly to reduced trade deficits? In this scenario the US is either sourcing more of what it needs internally, and thereby importing less, or it is more competitive globally and therefore exporting more, or both.
That would be a necessary condition for manufacturing-based reduction of inequality.
But manufacturing is not a way to decrease inequality unless there's massive massive other sorts of changes going with it.
In fact destroying the higher paying jobs to replace them with lower paying jobs in the US will heighten the inequality. And that's what's happening right now.