Does anyone really think that Jack (The Knife) Welch's old company was going to keep making any kind of lightbulbs in the US?  This may be a convenient excuse for them but seriously, if you can't make an "acceptable" profit on televisions, computers, cellphones etc. without going overseas, do you really think they're going to keep making a commodity like lightbulbs here? I'm pretty sure the LEDs will end up in Shanghai as well. Unless China adopts some of those oh so awful "liberal" policies like environmental protection, trade unions, decent healthcare , wages and working conditions, that isn't going to change.

The reality is that emerging countries have reached a point where they can make stuff that Americans want cheaper than we can. The Chamber of Commerce complains that if it just wasn't for all those odious regulations that make them stop polluting, provide marginally safe working conditions etc. keep them from competing. In truth, they'd still find that 1/10th of a cent per unit differential compelled them to go offshore. Unless you really believe that their loyalty is to country rather than the bottom line.

Clean energy, nano-technology etc. any be the answer, but I fear that the future's just going to be rough any way you slice it.  In 20 years,  the only jobs here will be emptying bedpans and flipping burgers (assuming Japanese robots aren't doing that. The worst is yet to come. People are whining about "Communism," and over-regulation while the heavily controlled, authoritarian Communist economic regime is laughing all the way to the Yuan repository. Reducing it to partisan politics misses the  point entirely, whether you're drinking KoolAid or Earl Grey.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken