The industrial infrastructure itself is collapsing.
"Output" figures are often deceptive because domestic finishing operations take full credit for the final product while more crucial steps earlier in the production process are outsourced offshore.
Yep, it is seen by everyone.
Damn those blacksmiths and buggy wheel manufacturers for they were part of creating this "demise" we are in.
Willie, I have no doubt that if you were living in the time of their demise, you would be an icon in saving their jobs.
The human part of that infrastructure is what worries me mostly. We have highly skilled and experienced workers and tradesmen in their middle ages driving busses and working at walmart and service jobs instead of using the benefit of a liftime of experience to train the next generation of highly skilled workers. We can always build new plants quickly, but we can't regain lost skills and experience, we have to relearn them from scratch; and that is both costly and time consuming.