[familyop]

For a nation of people to have things, they must produce things. Free nations must practice free trade in order to continue their freedoms. Manufacturing is real work. If you don’t don’t real work, eventually, you don’t eat.

[BillM]

This is nonsense. Productivity is is a measure of the number of hours required to produce the necessities of life. Anything that reduces that number is a plus for society. One man with a bulldozer can do the work of hundreds of lumberjacks with axes. That frees them up do other things. You need a lot of axes or just the one bulldozer. In many ways, if the problem is clearing the forest, it really doesn't matter where you bought the bulldozer.

Our service economy is much less vulnerable to economic collapse than the junk economy of China. We have been buying a lot of stuff not related to our basic needs. We can stop buying this stuff and be no worse off. The Chinese on the other hand will be devastated. That in itself is probably the greatest threat to America and the rest of the world.

[expat_panama]

Manufacturing is real work. If you don’t don’t real work, eventually, you don’t eat

That's crazy.  It's just like what people said about farming a hundred years ago: "America needs farmers for food because we can't eat what factories make."  

Since those days we've gone from half the US population on the farm to a half of one percent, and we grow more food than ever thanks to the machines from our factories.  It's the same with the services, a factory that's got say, a better floor layout or a better cost/quality control system, can produce a hell of a lot more products than some old-time factory from the '30's.