[bee_rider]

I’ve never studied economics so there is a very good chance I’m reading the plot wrong somehow, but it looks like US manufacturing has been increasing since the 70’s at least.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/tags/series?t=manufacturing%3Bqu...

It takes up less of the economy of maybe, and we might focus on upscale things that have less consumer visibility like industrial stuff, but manufacturing in the US seems to be in an OK spot.

[Kye]

It does seem like a situation where the pie just grew around it. There are so many kinds of job now. Even manufacturing is skilled work, more than it ever was. Their skill might be the ins and outs of a particular machine (like one of those big green injection molding machines), but it's as skilled as any kind of office work.

[bee_rider]

Yes.

Also the rest of the world’s pie grew, which is also fine.

The US made everything… for a while, after the rest of the world had blown up all of each other’s factories. Nobody is hoping for a repeat of that whole mess!