[Toddsterpatriot]

You are going by sales. Boeing, for example, is having a great run these last few years. Yet they have only a fraction, a small fraction, of the machine shops they used to have. I know, I worked there for a decade and still consult for them. Their employment is far from the record highs it was during the previous boom cycles.

Yes, sales continue to rise, even as employment declines. The same thing has happened to farming over the last 200 years. We continue to grow more food on less land with fewer farmers.

[pissant]

No, we continue to outsource production. It is not even remotely the same thing. Yes, Boeing continually finds ways to improve their techniques, but that is not why the employment is less. When entire fuselages are made in Japan, and the landing gear is made in europe, you soon become an assembler.