False. Not in manufacturing. We're the global 90-pound weakling. The newer better mousetrap gets invented by some guys in Silicon Valley, and then immediately manufactured elsewhere. E.g., say the high-density Plasma or LCD monitors and televisions. Most of the underlying technical advances were made here and in Japan. But they never get made here. Straight to China (with its huge tariffs, and government-oppressed wages), Taiwan, South Korea, and Thailand. Even hyper-automated Japan is being priced out of the market.
How many more "nails" do we have to lose, i.e., "want", before you guys wake up?
What do you suggest in an ecomony where as good, if not better trained and equiped employees can and will work for smaller wages to do the same work that used to be done here?
Seems to me that someone manufacturing a commodity in North Carolina is S.O.L. if that same commodity can be made somewher else, shipped here and still be sold for less because his total labor/regulatory/medical/legal/etc. cost renders him non-competitive.
You can bark at "us guys" all you want ... spell out an alternative that works in today's world.