“It’s an understandable sentiment, but probably not a realist(ic) economic plan. Further, the future of manufacturing in America is far different from the heavy, assembly-line operations of the past, and this has vast implications for the country’s worsening education gap.
“The romance associated with it is actually economically legitimate because it reminds us of the period of the greatest growth that we had in the U.S. economy which is basically 1950 to 1973, that 23 year period.
“And that was a period where we had the fastest growth and real income, something we have not seen for the last now 40 years. It’s also, at the same time, an association with the boom in the middle class..
“… What I see it as is a slowing down of the rate of loss of (U.S.) manufacturing, almost a stabilization of the decline of manufacturing in this country. The last 25 years, 30 years, companies would be heavily going into China because it was much less costly in labor to produce product, plus this is an enormous market, so it simply made sense. But the subsequent (per) capita income growth has meant a rise in the relative price of their labor, and so the differential has been alleviated.
“Once that differential alleviates and diminishes, the rate of manufacturing decline has to slow down…
“… We still will likely have for the foreseeable future much value added created by high technology manufacturing… By high technology,’ I mean basically the research and development is done here, the branding is done here, the high value added end of manufacturing, high technology manufacturing is done here.
“There’s a significant problem associated with that, though, which is that the widening gap in educational access in this country is a very serious problem for us to maintain our lead or our status in high technology in manufacturing. That gap in education is more serious for high technology manufacturing than it is for services. And that’s a serious problem we’re facing…”
