[bongo662]

It'd be interesting to see a breakdown of what 'forms' of manufacturing are leaving the nation. Its pretty obvious that as trade agreements rise up and its more cost effective to move manufacturing to other countries with lower payed workers that the company would do that but my guess would be that higher(?) quality manufacturing still goes on stateside rather than in China or Mexico for fear of IP theft. So for things like high grade medical devices - MRI, CT scanners would still be manufactured here because of the knowledge and technology necessary to construct it.

I also think theirs a good Stephen Hawking quote I like to think of when people discuss how in a post scarcity world with full automation life will be a utopia and its something along the lines of "If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed,"