"Reshoring" continues to be a hot topic among manufacturers. I wrote about the man many people recognize as the leading authority on the subject, but the trend has been observed for several years now. (NADCA is planning a panel discussion on the topic at its 2012 Die Casting Executive Conference, by the way.)

But if you take your business insights from the New York Times you'll probably conclude that there is no reshoring, and no possibility of it, because of the shortsightedness, greediness, and all-around inhumanity of manufacturing companies. This story from last weekend is being widely circulated and cited as evidence that the globalization game is over, and the U.S. manufacturing sector cannot catch up - ever.

In fact, it's a story about Apple Inc. and the particular manufacturing circumstances of its widely distributed and wildly popular consumer electronics devices. That's it. The article might have examined in more detail why Apple has made the decisions it has made to manufacture in China, rather than in California. It might have looked at other manufactured products - including, critically, some that are not consumer goods.  It might also have considered that there probably is a middle ground between the high cost of excessive regulations and human rights violations.

In fact, this report is a sterling example of the tendency to see global economics as a contest for total control of the world's markets - which is probably how it appears in seminars and conferences - rather than a process of finding economic growth opportunities by developing products that customers will want and delivering them effectively, efficiently, and reliably — which is how it works for manufacturers now taking advantage of reshoring to improve their own businesses and the U.S. economy.