Tektronix lifted the Portland Oregon region right up. Was called silicon forest.
At that time, Tek was funding startups its employees thought up after working for Tek, getting great education provided directly by the company as well as through college partnerships.
Tek also literally trained a workforce here by educating any of its employees and by doing programs with suppliers to do the same.
I am a product of that time.
A drive through this region in the 80's and early 90's was awesome! Shops of all kinds, Tek itself had COMTEK which could make damn near anything, and opportunities abounded!
Howard Vollem died and the MBA took over.
COMTEK was torn down, work was sent overseas, education stopped, startup funding stopped, and soon a drive through this region looked very different: hair nails and laundry.
While large scale manufacturing has grown, the rest has suffered huge!
Our military can't find the capacity it needs! And they, along with aerospace, are the best customers there are, with auto in some parts too.
The rest has been gutted.
That is what we need to fix. It matters.
If companies won't do what Tek did, and that is invest in the region and it's people, and they won't because getting max dollars at any cost matters more than sustainable business does, then we must have robust small to mid sized manufacturing.
Where else will our future skilled labor come from? And I left for higher end professional work and software. I can make anything I can draw, it was damn good at it too. Saw way too many places close and there's no way I can raise a family on that and I quit ... tons of us did.
The skills I have are rare and in high demand. Young people today can't get them like I did, and that adds right the hell up.
You think your arguments make sense. And you are not wrong. They do, but that is not the problem.
The problem is for your argument to make sense, a ton of people and manufacturing potential is lost and nobody seems to recognize the massive opportunity costs in all that.
And frankly if large companies aren't going to do it and get a return on that investment, then our government damn well should. We do really put our national security at risk doing otherwise.