>People with agendas will happily feed others narratives about the US not investing in manufacturing anymore, but it isn't true.
It's a matter of perception. Most people don't directly see (or buy) the stuff manufactured in the US these days. Normal people don't buy nuclear power plants, aircraft engines, commercial aircraft, etc., and certainly not military hardware which the US makes a lot of. They do buy clothes and various consumer electronics, and they see "Made in China" (or for some clothes, places like Bangladesh or Vietnam or Cambodia) printed on all those, when 50 years ago all that stuff had "Made in USA" printed on it, or for the nicer consumer electronics 30-40 years ago, "Made in Japan". People still might be getting a CPU for their laptop computer manufactured in the USA, but the chip will probably say "Made in Malaysia" because only the silicon was made in the US, and was then shipped somewhere else for packaging.
>However, manufacturing does represent a lower percentage of our GDP with each passing year, despite the absolute value increasing.
I'd say that's probably a bad sign: what other sectors are increasing? Likely they're things that aren't actually productive, such as healthcare (the value received does not represent the price paid in the US by a long shot, compared to other advanced economies; most of the money goes to insurance companies and waste), legal services, ever-increasing real estate valuations, etc.
It's a matter of perception. Most people don't directly see (or buy) the stuff manufactured in the US these days. Normal people don't buy nuclear power plants, aircraft engines, commercial aircraft, etc., and certainly not military hardware which the US makes a lot of. They do buy clothes and various consumer electronics, and they see "Made in China" (or for some clothes, places like Bangladesh or Vietnam or Cambodia) printed on all those, when 50 years ago all that stuff had "Made in USA" printed on it, or for the nicer consumer electronics 30-40 years ago, "Made in Japan". People still might be getting a CPU for their laptop computer manufactured in the USA, but the chip will probably say "Made in Malaysia" because only the silicon was made in the US, and was then shipped somewhere else for packaging.
>However, manufacturing does represent a lower percentage of our GDP with each passing year, despite the absolute value increasing.
I'd say that's probably a bad sign: what other sectors are increasing? Likely they're things that aren't actually productive, such as healthcare (the value received does not represent the price paid in the US by a long shot, compared to other advanced economies; most of the money goes to insurance companies and waste), legal services, ever-increasing real estate valuations, etc.