I'm no blanket apologist of free trade, but numbers like this are very misleading. The U.S. did not "lose" 2.8 million manufacturing jobs to foreign competition -- it "lost" most of them to efficiency improvements right here in the U.S. The strongest evidence of this is that U.S. manufacturing input was higher in 2004 than in 2001 -- which means we've manufactured more products with 2.8 million fewer "manufacturing" employees.
The other thing to remember is that employees are classified by the industry in which they work, not the job they perform. So an accountant for General Motors is considered a "manufacturing employee" even if he's never picked up a wrench in his life. So if General Motors decides to lay off 500 accountants and instead use a major accounting firm to do the same work (maybe even using the same people!), the net result is a loss of 500 "manufacturing" jobs that never existed in the first place.
Good points.
Until 120 years ago, our whole economy was based on agriculture and raw materials. Afer that, we had manufacturing as an economic base. Now, it is changing again.
Some folks see the latest change as bad, some as good. I just see it as inevitable.
Yeah just like Bush's old economic secretary that tried to have hamgurger making classified as manufacturing to boost numbers.