[Myrddin]

There is a big omission here. We were number one where there was nobody else producing anything. It's easy for the one-eyed man to be king among a world of blind people. It isn't that way anymore. Others are capable of producing products. Our "standards" and regulations have disadvantaged manufacturing in the U.S. compared to other places. It is too expensive and too over regulated to be attractive. Not to mention heavily taxed. The big government socialist safety demands too much. The days of blue collar manufacturing all essentially over for the U.S. Unions, government and anti-capitalist environmentalists have poisoned the well.

[Cronos]

We were number one where there was nobody else producing anything

Good point. In the 1950s Europe, Russia and Asia were ruined, in ashes from WWII, Africa was a mud-pit, S. America was recovering from numerous dictatorships. The US was the only real industrial state around.

As the W. Europeans and Japanese caught up in the 60s and 70s, we kept moving, but they moved faster (as they were starting from nothing and perversely, because they were destroyed, they had no legacy architecture)

Then in the 80s, the Asian tigers and then the Celtic tigers came up.

But then in the 90s, a completely game change -- the two sleeping giants: India and China awoke, communism collapsed. in the Naughties we see Eastern Europe, India, China removing the shackles of socialism slowly and building

As Myrddin pointed out, the standards and regulations and unions that we put in place in the 50s have put us at a severe disadvantage today.