When people talk about the “decline of U.S. manufacturing” over the past 10 years or so, they are not talking about some ephemeral or nebulous evaporation of demand or an unquantifiable off-shoring of jobs. Generally, they are not even talking about a dramatic decline in the relative amount of value added by manufacturing to overall gross domestic product, because since 2005 that share has only fallen from 13 percent to 12.4 percent. This is significant, but not staggering. By comparison, the contribution from the finance and insurance industry fell by a full percentage point, from 7.6 to 6.6 percent, over the same ... (full story)