But there are huge barriers, among which is the profitability metrics of accounting. Will it make sense from an economic point of view? Without that piece in place, political wishes and national determination will not be enough.

A factory worker operates a large machine suspended on a pulley in an industrial plant amid shafts of light, circa 1950. FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images 

The United States has outsourced vast amounts of its once-mighty manufacturing power to China, Mexico, and elsewhere. It seemed mutually beneficial for decades until we took note of how strange it all is that America should have so few industries it can call its own.

There are a number of ways to tackle this problem. But the scale of it is not widely understood. The wage differentials between the United States and other countries are gigantic and not easily overcome. Other production cost differentials matter too, as does the problematic value of the dollar. Its status as the world reserve currency cements the economic rationale of imports over exports.

There are other issues besides, among which is something more fundamental: the American work ethic. This is a cultural problem emerging from decades of easy money and a loss of enterprising drive.

A quick story from yesterday. I got in a grocery line behind a person with a huge basket full of groceries but they were arranged in a strange way. As she put them on the belt for checkout, she began to use the separators, not based on the kind of product but on some other basis.

I watched carefully as she put paper bags in each pile. After the first tranche went through, she pulled out a card and paid. She repeated this. Then I figured it out. She was shopping for Instacart, not just for one person but fully five households.

I reverse-engineered her process. As she entered the store, she had a huge list and as she went through each aisle, she had pulled groceries for each client, carefully separating them and maintaining that separation through checkout, payment, bagging, and eventually transportation.

The possibility of mistakes must be huge in this kind of operation. One error and the customer would surely complain.

I was a bit awestruck by the engineering feat that was unfolding before my eyes. I made inquiries about what was going on and she said she was doing this but did not say much more. Her English was broken so there were language difficulties. More importantly, she was simply too busy to chit-chat with some guy standing around making inquiries for an article.