Like I said, get past the reference to ChuckYou and see if you can fault the rest of his facts.
The peak of manufacturing employment (measured in comparison to the overall employment base) in the U.S. occurred in 1977, when 22% of employed Americans worked in the manufacturing sector. Today we're somewhere down around 8% to 9%, and "outsourcing" is only one of many factors that have driven this decline. Here are some others:
1. Comparative currency valuations. In global trade, the U.S. became less competitive compared to other countries when our dollar strengthened in the 1980s.
2. Deregulation in multiple industries. The growth of the telecommunications and transportation sectors, for example, which made it easier to transport products over long distances and conduct business globally, has played a much bigger role in "outsourcing" than most Americans realize.
3. Automation. It simply takes fewer workers to produce something today then it did 50 years ago, which explains why manufacturing employment has declined in the U.S. even in industries where the U.S. is still the leading global producer (automobiles, farm machinery and aircraft, for example).
4. Changes in workforce gender composition. Women comprised about 30% of the civilian U.S. workforce in 1950, compared to about 45% today. Very few women have ever had any interest in working in a factory.
It's worth noting that the peak in U.S. manufacturing employment as I've described it here occurred during the Carter administration, despite the general myth that the peak in U.S. manufacturing dates back to the 1950s. I don't think this is a coincidence, and I don't think there are too many folks here on FreeRepublic who would ever look back and see 1977 as the economic heyday of the United States.