Nethaway: No waiting for waiters

The United States blossomed into an international economic leader during the First and Second Industrial Revolutions.

Now many Americans worry that the bloom is off the rose.

As a young nation, Americans were quick to adopt technological innovations that transformed the labor-based economy into a manufacturing powerhouse.

Good old American ingenuity turned the steam engine, cotton gin, steel mill, telephone, internal combustion engine and other inventions into industrial giants that employed millions of workers
and expanded U.S. trade worldwide.

In recent years, however, manufacturing jobs dried up as companies moved their operations to foreign countries with lower labor costs, fewer employee benefits, lax environmental laws and less government interference.

There's nothing to worry about, Americans were told.

The outsourcing of manufacturing jobs is natural in the new global economy.

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