> One could argue that it isn't, and that the loss of manufacturing caused the US economic problems I've heard a lot of references to how we need to bring manu

> One could argue that it isn't, and that the loss of manufacturing caused the US economic problems I've heard a lot of references to how we need to bring manufacturing back, but what's the TL;DR on why they're so necessary? Is it just that they're stable blue-collar jobs? My understanding has been that the issue was that blue-collar jobs aren't economical any more (when competing with automation and workers in poorer countries), but that we failed to educate our population enough that they could fill white-collar jobs. Aside from the national security argument (domestic manufacturing and energy production per se have those advantages), is there something I'm missing about the benefits of manufacturing jobs?