Manufacturing Sector Info in Article About Chinese Currency Manipulation?

After eight days of off-and-on research, I stumbled across an article today from Forbes about the Chinese economy (and its relationship to the U.S. economy), currency manipulation and a possible 'trade war' between the U.S. and the Chinese governments. The U.S. manufacturing industry is mentioned, hence, the reason to even bring it up now. To my perception, the information, found here:

http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/05/china-trade-war-personal-finance-currency-manipulation.html?boxes=Homepagechannels

falls somewhere between the rosy picture found in the industry newsletter and the Yahoo! article which paints a doomed picture for those who have been in manufacturing all their lives.

To quote:

"Make no mistake: The reduction in the manufacturing and goods-producing sector (manufacturing, mining and agriculture) of the economy continues to be a serious problem. Manufacturing's contribution has fallen from 14.5% of U.S. gross domestic product in 2000 to 11.5% now. More troubling is the jobs picture. The U.S. has lost 5.7 million manufacturing jobs over the past decade. Measured in terms of all goods-producing sectors, the losses come to a stunning 6.8 million jobs."

There are so many statistics floating around, it was easy for me to get lost in the numbers and wonder, "What does it all mean in concrete terms that I can wrap my mind around?"

As I was considering that question two days ago, a thought occurred to me. How about a balanced economy? One with manufacturing jobs, farm jobs, service jobs, and every other kind of jobs. Something for everybody.

To quote the late Robert Heinlein, "Specialization is for insects." Can the United States survive as a country 'specializing' in just that one thing, "service"? Personally, I don't think so.