Economists on re-starting American manufacturing; start with a ball!

From America's Finest News Source:

Claiming that the nation's standing within the increasingly competitive global marketplace was perhaps not what it once was, the economists gently encouraged American producers to "wipe the slate clean" and rebuild their confidence by starting fresh with a plain, basic ball.
"You really shot for the moon and tried to do something grand, and we think that's just great," read a statement from the American Economic Association that was addressed to the nation's manufacturing sector. "But let's face it, the whole American manufacturing thing hasn't worked out quite as well as we'd hoped, so we think there's no shame in just paring down your ambitions slightly and focusing on making a really good ball, no more, no less

True, there has been an extensive shift away from manufacturing.  But, then we better not quickly jump into concluding that somehow goods manufactured elsewhere means economic ruin for America.  We do manufacture a whole lot of high value items.  Here is what Reason had to say about "Made in America"



Which is the same point that he Onion, er, America's Finest News Source makes through its typical straight-faced satire:

The response within the American manufacturing sector has thus far been overwhelmingly positive, with hundreds of aerospace, home appliance, and electronics corporations readily discontinuing their more complicated products in favor of a simple little ball.
"We switched our equipment over to ball-production two days ago and things couldn't be going better," said Daniel Akerson, chairman and CEO of General Motors. "We're making 15 tons of balls a day, they're coming out nice and round, and we're just overjoyed with how much we're accomplishing. I'd completely forgotten how great it feels to make a product you're actually proud of."

As a student remarked in her assignment, we should go around asking the question that Dr. Phil apparently asks on his show: "How's that working for you?"  Hey, it is working out great.  The problem is not in the loss of manufacturing, but in our inability to move our thinking beyond that.  And the political governance problems, like with, ahem, blowing up the Constitution itself ...