Interesting article. This is the key takeaway for me: "U.S. firms are at a further disadvantage in that their foreign competitors benefit from sustained govern

Interesting article. This is the key takeaway for me: "U.S. firms are at a further disadvantage in that their foreign competitors benefit from sustained government incentives to invest in advanced industrial equipment." True then, and true now. If you want to buy a machine, you are basically on your own, and machine financing isn't favorable, it's on the contrary somewhat predatory. But this article was written prior to Haas really taking off in the 90s and 2000s, and I think Haas has been somewhat successful in selling into North America, if only for relatively cheap, low-quality, general-purpose machines. And, if you extend the axis of that graph back past 1980, I think Germany, Japan and the UK were dominating advanced machine tool manufacture since their industrial revolutions. I am not convinced that USA was EVER a real leader in advanced machine tool manufacture, I think it was always traditionally imported. Correct me if I am wrong. Sure, the Americans made crappy low tech Bridgeport mills and engine lathes by the millions, then relied onto that technology for 100+ years (and are still trying to make it work). The Haas vertical mill is the new Bridgeport mill, it is 30 years behind state of the art, and American industry is still buying that en masse. I think that the computer industry was successful enough in the 1990s, American policy makers were essentially OK with losing ground in the machine tool industry. Then the computer industry also got offshored. But remember! The equipment and production lines were originally shipped offshore wholesale, the production lines can get shipped back, but American land, energy costs, wages, taxes and other input costs are too high to make it work (without protective tariffs).