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The Road to Productive Wealth
The only true key to wealth lies in production. While you can increase your own wealth at the expense of others, we all become wealthier when productive resources are increased. Greater wealth for our economy lies in increasing the quantity or quality of productive resources -- labor, capital, and natural resources. This is done by investing in education, capital goods, research and development, and technology.

Manufacturing, along with mining, agriculture and construction, are the primary wealth creating sectors of our economy. When there is a significant loss of manufacturing capabilities, our nation's ability to create wealth and prosperity similarly declines. That includes you and your family, even though you may not be employed in the manufacturing sector.

I suspect that manufacturing is going to change. I lived in PA years ago when all of the old coal/steel operations were shutting down. Everybody screamed that it was the end of the world, but other businesses took over, or people moved away and followed work to other areas (which is what Americans have traditionally done when jobs have dried up in a particular location).

I agree that companies should invest more in production. It would be sounder all around. However, "should" is not a word that is understood in economics. Things work and they produce profits, or they don't. There is no point in waiting for an old system to come back again, because it can't and it won't.

I think we're simply going through another reorganization of the industrial world, which is something that seems to happen every couple of decades.