To put China's sustained growth into perspective, when it surpassed the United States in 2010 to become the world's largest manufacturer, its output accounted for 23 percent of global manufacturing. Fast forward two years and China has gained an additional 10 percent of total manufacturing share, with $2.9 tr of the total $8.8tr global manufacturing output, putting their total value at 20 percent more than the US.

American manufacturing to the rescue? Who could have imagined that? It wasn't so long ago that this sector was said to be on its deathbed. Now we're hearing that manufacturing is the "key driver" of what's passing for an economic recovery in this country.

One night last January, Mark Shields was home in his kitchen making hummus, listening to This American Life, WBEZ's popular syndicated radio show. He was streaming the podcast on his Mac laptop via Apple's AirPort technology, which turned out to be an appropriate platform for listening to the episode, given that the subject was Apple itself.