While the author's examples are horrible (German bread? Iranian baklava?), he has an important point. When you have an expanding economy, such as the US has h

While the author's examples are horrible (German bread? Iranian baklava?), he has an important point. When you have an expanding economy, such as the US has had for the last 60 years, marketing trumps manufacturing. People don't want any shoe, they want a Nike. But we've changed to a contracting economy now, where manufacturing trumps marketing. People care less about the label and more about having a decent shoe. (Note, I'm not talking year-by-year ups and downs, but 'bigger picture' movement.) During the expanding economy, America outsourced manufacturing to focus on marketing, since it was what was important. And now that things have reversed, it's in a bad spot.