>>It happened because:
True about off-shoring... but did you not say you know truck driver equivalents in Germany who still expect to own their own home and to send their kids to University?
You can't call Germany a low-wage economy, or Switzerland. Something has developed differently in the US so that people effectively can shrug at the idea that the American dream may be over while elsewhere in the First world, working hard still can translate to steps up the ladder.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
