One overlooked factor that helped the US after WWII is that we were the manufacturing base for most of the world for decades after the end of the war. Over 50% of manufactured goods were made in the US in the decade after WWII.
Manufacuring might have been a viable path out of debt after WWII, but it isn't right now. If you look at Germany, its manufacturing sector is in decline, and this is the country's strength. China's outcompeting it. Not only is China no longer just producing cheap knockoffs, it has a better manufacturing ecosystem, and it has surplus manufacturing capacity.
>If you look at Germany, its manufacturing sector is in decline, and this is the country's strength.
German manufacturing is in decline because it relied on dirt-cheap Russian energy. It's not cost competitive otherwise.
https://www.energyconnects.com/news/gas-lng/2025/february/ge...Europe has spent three painful years weaning itself off gas from the east with the biggest impact felt in Germany, the region’s biggest economy. German industry was built on cheap Russian gas and rising energy prices have already trammeled growth and forced some manufacturers to move production abroad.
Why past tense? Dilution remains a good solution to most pollutants, carbon included. That it stops working after a point doesn't make it useless per se.
