You bet-- my workday just finished and I can take my time now.
The article said that manufacturing output has grown nicely over the decades and you pointed out that we have a big trade deficit with China. Now, some people would say that both can't be true, but I showing that high output comes with economic booms that come with trade deficits. The bad news is when people decide they hate trade deficits so much that they're willing to vote for some clown (like Obama) that raises tariffs and wrecks the economy.
I’m not an economist but I am a bit of a history buff. FDR and the “New Deal” didn’t end the Great Depression, WWII didn’t end the Great Depression. What ended it was that at the end of the war we were basically the only major country with factories that weren’t bombed flat.
Anywhere in the world if you wanted to buy manufactured goods they almost had to be purchased from American factories.
We got spoiled, wages and profits increased and as the world was slowly catching up we acted as if the situation would last forever. The world caught up. To keep our standard of living we started living on credit. The bills have finally come due I don’t see a pretty picture from here.
I can see the American standard of living collasping as we find ourselves taxed to death just to maintain infrastucture that was put in place when we could afford it.
I see you were originally arguing that free trade policies weren’t to blame for the loss of manufacturing jobs as evidenced by the increase in overall US manufacturing output compared to the total number of manufacturing workers. IOW, job losses have resulted from technological advances which have replaced workers. I think that technology has certainly increased the productivity of the US manufacturing employee but I disagree that this is the only reason we have seen an increase in productivity, IOW, I disagree with the premise that outsourcing and offshoring have not contributed to manufacturing sector job losses. I think there is a bit of truth to both sides of the argument but it is completely false to assert that one or the other is is the exclusive cause.