How many Americans actually want to go back to a low-cost assembly based manufacturing economy?<p>I&#x27;m a Brit and recently had a rather weird experience as a friend of mine waxed lyrical on the one hand about how Britain needs more honest manufacturing jobs because that&#x27;s how wealth is created, while also talking up how great his Son&#x27;s private school is and that he&#x27;s got a fund set aside for the boy&#x27;s University education, probably in the arts. It was more than a little surreal.<p>The fact is UK manufacturing is actually doing pretty well. It accounts for 12% of the country&#x27;s output compared to a high of 25%, and has mainly migrated into higher value engineering and design. So yes it&#x27;s a lot lower than during the 70s proportionately, but they are predominantly much, much better jobs. What we should be doing is what my friend is actually doing versus what he was advocating. Educating and investing our way into a higher value economy.