Yes, I do believe manufacturing is becoming Cool again! Though American manufacturing was lost to cheap labor overseas, they are now losing their jobs, to even cheaper labor - the robots. With this, we are seeing a regrowth of manufacturing in American, though not a return of the middle pay jobs that once to dominate the industry.



Automation is eliminating the lower skilled and repetitive jobs, and replacing them with higher skilled engineering and entrepreneurial positions. But our population is not suited to fill those new jobs. People that struggle to understand fractions could still excel in a middle-pay factory job that required physical skills, but they have no hope filling the high tech engineering and entrepreneurial jobs that are being created by our economy today. The economy is creating jobs, but our human population can't fill them. This is creating an over abundance of low skilled workers, chasing too few low skill jobs, causing wages to drop to minimum wage levels, while a lack of high skill workers, chasing a growing demand of high skill opportunities, causing high end salaries to skyrocket.



As automation advances, this problem will only grow - more people will find their jobs being outsourced to machines, leaving them without the skills or time to re-educate (even if they have the mind for the work), stuck in minimum wage jobs - if they can even find them.



Though it will be nice to see manufacturing come back to America, the larger problem is that we are facing a major revolution in the economy. We are getting very near to the future where humans won't be able to work for a living at all, and where wealth will be created by, and controlled by, the top investors and entrepreneurs that end up owning everything in this winner take all economy that is emerging.



