In today’s emerging high tech, highly automated manufacturing environment, skills and productivity are the key and wages, while important, are not the main barrier
And the emergence of fracking has started a revival of American manufacturing independent of any other influence due to reasonable energy costs and the conversion of petrochemical feed stocks from oil based naphtha to low cost natural gas for plastics, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers and other petrochemical based products
This is especially important because the generation of automation is going to be a game changer.
It is vital that as much of the capitol investment in these next generation manufacturing systems take place in the US because whoever controls this technology base will control the future of manufacturing for the 21 st Century
The drain on America has gotten to the point where it has become a national security issue because many process critical materials, components and products are no longer made in the US at all and have no domestic supplier
If there were a sudden disruption in imports suppliers a surprising amount of American products would lack critical raw materials or components and rebuilding US production base could take years
Furthermore, the supply chain logistics of some of the Asian, especially Chinese, products is the stuff of nightmares and constitutes a serious enough risk that supply chain disruptions could put many highly exposed companies at serious risk in the event of disruption.
The bottom line is, do we want to be dependent on China for our infrastructure, and national security?