in the 1980's our education system or maybe it was the Department of Education in Washington, who knows in the USA decided we could ship machinist jobs overseas and let them do them and we could buy it from them as we would just "service" them or buy a new one. When I was a kid they taught machine shop, drafting and woodworking skills in high schools and as the bureaucracy decided the skill trades were a thing of the past less and less machinists were available because they stopped teaching skilled trades in schools, sold the machinery. Then the recession hit and many shops closed and were auctioned off to Asia where they had the skilled people.
A very good friend of mine who has long passed away. Owned a used machine dealership in Minneapolis who was convinced that the bureaucracy was being controlled by folks who said manufacturing caused pollution and we had to stop polluting mother earth so we shipped our good paying jobs, good paying union jobs, non union and our manufacturing base overseas. He wrote hundreds of letters to politicians in Washington and locally warning them that if there was a crisis and we needed machines to make weapons or components for weapons we were screwed. You wouldn't believe all the huge machine tools that left the country and went to Korea and China.
No Machines and no Machinists to run them. Now we are waking up and you all need to start voting in school board members who will bring back teaching the skilled trades in high schools, open more Vo-Tech High Schools, Vote for candidates who want to employ Americans and not ship our jobs overseas, create good paying $31.00 per hour jobs again and not $12.00 per hour button pushers who sit on their cell phones texting all day long. I hate to say it, but Buy American when you can. We need more skilled tradesmen plus engineers. I suppose I started something now, but in my opinion that is why their are no machinists. With our educators teaching Machinist trades and also teach ways not to pollute mother earth we should be able to become great again. Another thing we need to put man on the moon again, explore the oceans, explore space, drill for oil in the USA so we can create a manufacturing base again.