My cousin works for a shoe designer. They started off very small, but had original products that their customers loved. Then they hit it big, and stores like Macy's and Nordstrom wanted to carry their brand. They went to China to scale their manufacturing.
Much of the doom and gloom in the economy has been warranted: our manufacturing sector is dying and we are in a huge debt hole. Our politicians are bad jokes and our values are scripted from Looney-Tunes cartoons. But, that's actually been the case for some time in the US, even if it's more pronounced and a heavier weight today. I still believe that, while the American brand is damaged, much of the world thinks of us as pretty f-in cool, and that's partly because we imagine products that are golden.
The entrepreneurs we need will be creating the next iPods, walkmans and boom-boxes; levis jeans, Air Jordan's, and leather jackets; coca-cola, malbros, and bubble gum. If it's cool, you can sell it. Should the dollar continue to decline against gold, it may become profitable to again manufacture these products at home. Gold is valuable (largely) because people think it's valuable - the same has been true and can be true of American products even if their manufacturing costs are low.
That is, until consumerism is replaced by a new world utopia and fads are replaced with morals (that was meant to be funny, but it's just kinda sad).
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