It is confusing, and incorrect, to think of it as 400 amps. It is actually 200 amps doing work in two different places.
If you put two different amp clamps on the same wire with 200 amps flowing through it, both will read 200 amps. This does not mean that you have 400 amps flowing because you measured 200 in two different places.
In your example, you are using 24000 watts of power at leg A and 24000 at leg B. But the two legs are in series in this example. Imagine two waterfalls, one right after the other, in the same stream. Each waterfall represents a potential to gererate power, but the water flow in gallons per minute is same at all places in the stream.
Bruce, I still see them around. It is usually called a “green plug” or something like that. Basically it is a power factor corrector. The circuit was originally designed by NASA, or so the legend goes. Unfortunately any fridge built since the Carter administration has power factor correction already and the “green plug” makes it worse, not better.
You notice, when they demonstrate these things it is always on an unloaded motor. Modern motors are designed to me most efficient at the rated load.