Zipjet
"""It seems to me that the best hope for rebuilding employment in this country is manufacturing"""
I wish you were right but sadly the horse left the barn and it'll never return. Not only is manufacturing critical to our employment picture but it's more critical to our standard of living.
As a country we really got our priorities out of whack and we forgot how our past generations made our country what is was. Now it has collapsed.
Every different group of 'people' chopped a little piece of manufacturing until nothings left. The Educators stopped our skilled trades education, the unions drew a little blood, the enviromentalists took away some resources, the politians stopped valuing their output, etc etc. and now there's basically nothing left.
One of the companies I'm involved in makes heavy equipment for the pharma/food industries. Less than 15 years ago we used to buy all our metals in Ky or Pa, all our electronics Wi and then used dozens of local machine shops along with our fabricating facilities. Today, 95% of our metal comes in from the EU or India, all our electronics come in from Sweden and all of machining is done in eastern europe. We still assemble in the states.
It's sad.
Lastly, regarding the 30 million people you're refering to about insurance. Don't forget 16 million of those people will go on medicare, which is split financially with the states, but of course the states contribution is not in the figures.
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