Tough sell for tough times

The article discusses the report issued by the National Coalition for Advanced Manufacturing to government and industry leaders, describing what it thinks the US must do to maintain its current standard of living. The coalition calls for an industrial transformation that will make the US competitive on a manufacturing basis with other countries, including low-wage China. The report says that once the use of advanced technologies reaches critical mass, the US will have the ability to produce highly individualized goods on a mass scale. This new breed of personalized products would likely ward off competition from ordinary imports, resulting in a lower trade deficit.