In the past - like 2 years ago - we did not need agriculture and manufacturing, because of comparative advantage.  Y'know, the comparative advantage of China and other countries using slave labor, low capital, high labor hours, no regulation, shoddy workmanship, horrendous pollution, and dirty diesel to make and ship the product 8,000 across the world.  That comparative advantage. 

Not Ricardo's comparative advantage... lest you be confused.  Ricardo's comparative advantage works, according to Ricardo, only when labor and capital are not mobile.

So let's look at high tech.  Batteries... for example. 

But much more needs to be done, says Mary Ann Wright, vice president and general manager for Johnson Controls' hybrid-battery business. She has been lobbying Washington for a national effort to establish research labs and manufacturing technology to make the U.S. a battery-manufacturing leader.

It would be more of rebirth of an industry than one started from scratch. Key components needed in hybrid and electric vehicles -- including the battery, electric motor and specialized electronics -- were originally developed in the U.S., Ms. Wright says. Now nearly all of them come from Asia.

"It's our punishment for inventing this stuff and allowing manufacturing to go somewhere else," she says.

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