I never thought you'd be arguing the conservative position and I'd be arguing the progressive. Funny how that works. The way I see it, if you set the cost of labor universally the market will readjust to about where it should be, and the slow shift of manufacturing from america to china and Latin america will cease, and manufacturing and consumption will start to distribute evenly.
As it is, we will continue to consume while the rest of the world produces, and our debt will rise until the nations that handle production refuse to buy anymore of it. Then the global economy dies and world war 3 starts.