And you brought back that lovely dog too.

I was Made In America. I outlasted the implied warranty by far.

True that! And WALL ST. and corporate managers tend to have a ONE quarter time-horizons on their decisions. Japan and some European countries have business leaders the have 5-year plans. Japan uses a "Circle of Management" philosophy that they got from a book written (probably 1950) in the US, but was ignored. It means that upper management MUST pay attention to the lowest line workers because they are close to the action and therefore, the most knowledgeable.
That RARELY happens in the US, which adopted a top-down approach like the US military after its success in WW2. Last time I checked Japanese CEOs were considered GREEDY if they made more than 10 to 15 times more than their average line workers. Compare that to US CEOs. And then, even realize that it is the reason why the average person does NOT even realize how and why the whole US wealth gap problem has developed. And why it may be impossible to reverse!

Example?

So here's what happens when the self-service cash registers came:

1. You need an entire manufacturer to make those machines, from the coder of the program, to the frame the machine sits in, the trucks that deliver the machines. So that's a lot of new employees. Global, yes. Some in America, some in other countries. It's a global project.

2. You need a sales force to convince stores to use them. That's definitely American employees, there.

3. You need people who are trained in repairing these machines, that never existed before. So you'll need to hire a contractor, which means more new employees. Definitely American, they won't be flying in from Japan to fix the register at the Winn Dixie.

4. You need AT LEAST one dedicated employee in the store, every shift that the store is open to the public, available to help Mrs. Smith who thought she was supposed to stuff all the coupons in the slot at the same time, and now she isn't getting her discounts and the machine won't let her leave til she deposits one coupon at a time so the machine can count the quantity of coupons and compare it to the quantity of coupons scanned. And to change the receipt tape when it runs low. And to show Mr. Jones how to turn up the volume of the fake machine lady who recites the price of what he just bought. And bag the groceries for Miss Hines, who always demands that people help her in the self-serve aisle and refuses to just go to the normal cashiers.

and so on, and so forth.

Yes, that store might need to not hire a couple of people once a couple existing employees retire. But the cash register industry has hired thousands of people who might otherwise have been unemployed. And again - this is a global effort, so yes there are new American employees, and new Chinese employees, new German employees, some in India, maybe the material for the rubber gaskets came from Thailand or Indonesia, thus requiring more rubber-tree-processors there.

I have always been amazed and confused by the reaction "normal" people have to any proposal to somehow make the 1% (really more like the .1%) pay their fair share. After all, they have the most to lose and get the most benefit from the government. Who wields the most power over congress and the pres - you and me or Jeff Bezos, the Kardashians, etc?
As an example - when AOC (yes, that AOC) suggested adding an additional tax bracket that kicked in only AFTER income passed $50,000,000 for a year (fifty million) you would have thought the world was ending. We have 7 brackets thanks to the Ryan/Trump tax give away, why does adding one more mean the end of America?

You should be willing to pay everyone a wage that allows them to afford to pay whatever price American manufacturers want to charge.

Agree!

It is not a matter of people NOT being willing to work. They have just had their ambition to better the next generation beaten out of them. The ladders for upward mobility have been burned up by things like systemic elimination of Unions, the artificial difficulty for some groups to become homeowners, constant competition from legal and illegal immigrants and a "greed is good" mantra instead of a "teamwork and a rising tide lifts ALL boats approach. There are MANY other reasons like, what are all the lobbyists REALLY contributing to society? Maybe they need to be boiled in oil? (Just joking!)
How about limiting the size of farms and ranches? How about turning the clock of tax policy back to the 1950s that people today agree were superior in many ways Sociologically (not Scientifically).
Made in America was a big part of the healthy attitudes and social equality enjoyed by Americans in the 1950s. Also, foreign countries had not YET infected Americans with LETHAL drugs like beginning in the (about) the 1980s and continuing and getting worse today.

An excellent post! Very informative!

I disagree with the content of that post.

I agree with your disagreement. I wrote a rebuttal to the post, but it apparently did not get posted or was deleted. Bottom line - moving jobs to the lowest paying, least restrictive place has been going on for at least 50 years and was considered "smart business practice" until it wasn't all of a sudden. I think Obama was trying to be realistic, and despite some feeble attempts to change it, it remains true that manufacturing, for the most part, is NOT coming back. Hi skilled, specialized work - yes and that is good. The put A into B stuff is gone forever IMO.

I look for brands 1st and price 2nd. For example, when I buy a new car (once every 15 years) I look at Toyota, Nissan, and Honda. I don't even look at the price of a Chevy or Chrysler. Ford has some quality recently, but not enough for me yet. I would prefer to buy American, but in new cars and trucks, the quality difference is too large For tools, I prefer Craftsman and Kobalt. I would decide between them individually and look at the price. I do NOT need the best top-quality professional-grade tools.
So, in general, I lean Ameican, but take in ALL qualities, including price.

There is something that I always prefer to buy American and even LOCALLY American and that is, any local produce because it tastes better and has more vitamins and nutrients in it than produce from further away. And less wasted oil to support Saudi Arabia. I also like to support the small farmer rather than the big farmer or rancher. Big farms are usually using excessive fertilizer instead of rotating crops and wasting more water, fuel oil. and other resources than small farms. Small farms benefit larger numbers of families than big farms and ranches. In Ca. large pecan farms EVEN get greater priority for WATER than people. That IS some seriously inverted priorities. And that shows the problems caused by the POWER of big farms and their lobbyists.

Not necessarily #1. Switzerland has greater income and wealth per person. And Many, many countries have a greater "quality of Life" than the US! We rank around 25th.