Looking out my office window, I do not see Alaska, but I do see America entering what could be a paralytic state. There is no prospect of a major reclamation of our nation’s education system, or a renewal of our rusty infrastructure. There also does not appear to be a reinvigorated devotion to manufacturing, or a drive toward the creation of meaningful new domestic jobs.
We have not always had such dire prospects. In the 1980s, we were the world’s leading machine tool builder and the largest user of machine tools. Today, that position has been filled dramatically by other countries.
In 2009, Japan and Germany were virtually tied for first place in machine tool building, with China closing fast in third and Italy, Taiwan, and South Korea next in line. The United States, however, now rates a miserable seventh in machine tool production.
The major factor in this decline is the outsourcing of U.S.