[TimothyFarrar]

Len you do have a good point, medical and other industries that require either high tolerances, expensive certifications (aerospace), fast turnaround (prototyping), low volume rebuild, service machining, aftermarket industries, etc are here to stay for now.

There is one thing that I could see completely turning around manufacturing in this country within a few years : an oil energy "crisis". You would get an instant boom of breader reactors (recycling the fuel rods), super-capacitor industry to replace the chemical batteries, and a huge infrastructure setup to replace all the gas powered devices we have now.

Personally I think that oil will simply taper off so slowly that all the new replacement technologies will be out-sourced and produced elsewhere. But if there is a crisis then that will snap the US in gear and we will see a massive rebound.