[tyre]

Interesting point on (1). I wonder if that could trigger relaxed repatriation taxes for corporations in the US. Bringing a few hundred billion home would be great in a liquidity crisis.

I wasn't thinking of (2) that way, but in that case you're right that southeast asian competition is a bigger factor. If cheap manufacturing leaves, China would need to shift to consumer growth, which American companies thus far haven't really cracked (except Apple to an underwhelming degree.)

An interesting aside on (2) would be if a trade-protectionist president is elected in the US. This would re-prioritize from cheap manufacturing overseas to better jobs at home—triggering or accelerating what you were talking about. The New Yorker had a great piece today on how both Sanders and Trump are of that mindset.[1]

(4) might be a case of six in one hand, half dozen in the other. Turned out that the US government did (indirectly) hold all that mortgage debt when it bailed out the banks. That said, it looks better externally to institute QE to bailout companies who backed bad debt than to print money to pay off your own debt.

Either way, I'm not sure we are or aren't at a crisis yet, but they also haven't fixed some basic structural problems.

[1] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/22/trump-sanders-a...