When we transitioned from an economy based on farms to one based on factories, and workers needed new skills and training, our nation set up a system of public high schools.

WHITEHOUSE: President Obama at Michigan Commencement

We rejected 14 factories based on initial evaluation.

BBC: News Online

If you mine the newspaper archives for last year, or the year before (well, not exactly, you need for Chinese New Year, which being based on a lunar calendar is a movable feast) you will see many a story about how factories were desperately short of the labour they needed in the big Chinese manufacturing towns.

FORBES: Foxconn's Hiring Freeze: Not about Slowing Apple Sales, Rather, Foxconn's Higher Wages For They've Done The Henry Ford $5 A Day Thing

Our calculations are based on the value-added in industry (which extends beyond manufacturing) and the wage bill of urban factories, which does not count the town and village enterprises that employ over two-thirds of China's metal-bashers.

ECONOMIST: The yuan-dollar exchange rate

In the same way that mass production moved the locus of industry from small shops to huge factories, today's mutations have the potential to shift us away from business models based on economies of scale, asset intensification, concentration and central control.

FORBES: McKinsey Quarterly