Differing opinions; but please, make it factual

I don't want to get into this too much or too deeply. There are certainly two viewpoints as to which direction the United States and more specifically U.S. industrial might is headed.

This guy takes one more aligned with my outlook. Its that things aren't as bad as they are sometimes portrayed. And while he makes some good points, he misses the obvious: If we make 15% more than 20 years ago, but are 50% more productive, we need less workers in manufacturing. As the economy grows and adds new kinds of jobs, workers in manufacturing jobs make up less and less of the workers around us.

I'm not going to rant. I'm just pointing that out as my stance. Trying to give a reasoned outlook for why I believe what I do. As I said, you can certainly have a differing opinion, and I'm sure there are stats to back you up.

There is no way to link to the comments to taht article, but you can scroll to the bottom and see the first group. Its worth scrolling through the 5 or so pages of virtrol and spittle-flying anger. Maybe the commentators (well, 95% of them) are right. Maybe the U.S. is doomed.

But their arguments whining isn't convincing me in the least. My guess is that they don't even see the holes in their arguments. Meanwhile, at least one of commenters, while supposedly arguing against him, makes the author's point from the second and eight paragraph.