[Alberta's Child]

I think you raise some very good points, but how can you possibly say that the manufacturing sector is "crumbling?" The U.S. manufacturing sector almost always produces more output every year than the previous year, which is hardly an indicator of a "crumbling" sector.

A lot of folks mistakenly assume that a decline in manufacturing employment means a corresponding decline in manufacturing output. In fact, the opposite is the case in the U.S. right now.

[WRhine]

how can you possibly say that the manufacturing sector is "crumbling?" The U.S. manufacturing sector almost always produces more output every year than the previous year, which is hardly an indicator of a "crumbling" sector.

There are two things at work here. One is that increased automation is increasing output with fewer workers which covers up much of the actual shrinkage in the sector. That's the march of progress. The other is that much of what passes for manufacturing today is really assembly work where the complex value added components of a product that require extensive R&D and engineering are manufactured overseas only to be slapped together here.

So with the much looser standards of what constitutes manufacturing (witness Bush's former economic advisor’s attempts to classify making hamburgers as "manufacturing") the aggregate economic numbers don't look that bad when what is actually happening in America's manufacturing sector is nothing short of a disaster.