> A real American manufacturing renaissance would be German, with high skilled trained professionals designing, building, and operating advanced machines to cre

> A real American manufacturing renaissance would be German, with high skilled trained professionals designing, building, and operating advanced machines to create complex products. So like Applied Materials, Lam Research, and KLA Tencor? The global leaders in semiconductor machinery are predominantly American, with honorable mentions for the Japanese (Tokyo Electron, Dainippon Screen) and Dutch (ASML, ASMI). Most of the equipment is made stateside, e.g. Applied Materials manufacturing is in Austin. > America can’t even agree on giving community college to poor kids, let alone training a generation of toolmakers, electronic engineers, programmers, and every other profession involved in making things out of atoms more complex than a handtool or a radiator. The "America is doomed!" rhetoric is older than the hills and, while we are in decline as the global hegemon, economically we are still as vibrant as ever. Last year KLA Tencor opened a second headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan... not in China.