[marco_salvatori]

I didn't feel this article was clearly thought out. If just manufacturing things, whatever things are, were important then possibly replacing (magically) the industrial sectors in the US with those from China would be a good thing. If that came about then of course the US would be much poorer, possibly as poor as China. Its also not sufficient to say manufacturing is a source of good paying jobs. Highly skilled manufacturing sectors provides good wages and benefits (say, semiconductor manufacturing), piece work in say the garment industry provides sub subsistence level wages. A better title would be - "it matters what an advanced economy produces". I used to work in manufacturing (all over the world) and here a few impressions based on my experience. In the factories, today, where people in advanced economies would want their children to work, there are more robots than people. The ratio of automation will increase over the next 10 years as the machines become smarter. In advanced countries it is more and more common for manufacturing facilities to require the skills of people with PhD's, Masters degrees and highly trained vocational workers to function. There are going to be very few jobs in 10 years for people who can just contribute muscle power. Even in the far east, manufacturing is going to be a sector of falling employment (like agriculture in the past) and at the same time of rising output (like agriculture). And lastly, here is a thought, based on my experience running a business. There is lots of competition out there in the world. One cant make a good living producing any "Thing". One has to find a product that is differentiated, valuable to others, and not easily reproduced by thousands of other businesses all over the world. And then one has to sell it. That's turns out to be a difficult job -- much more complicated than a slogan like "manufacturing".