Manufacturing skill development

Check this article

http://blog.seattlepi.com/gettowork/archives/188875.asp

All major factories for industrial tooling have closed down in the United States. Now, obviously with no demand of technicians, the technical schools offering these trades would close down also. So in a way the complete supply chain of a particular skill type would come to a halt. This is a huge risk as restarting this supply chain would be very very difficult.

At a business level, we routinely keep at least two vendors alive for most items. It is a risk management strategy. Surprisingly this fact seems to have been ignored at the national level. Countries spend billions of dollars in creating oil reservoirs to de risk oil shortages. I guess somewhere a similar investment is needed to ensure the basic level of technical skill. The risk of losing out on these skills is just too high.