In the business section of today's New York Times, Edmund L. Andrews reports from Rockford, Illinois, where people actually used to make things for a living. There's a lot less manufacturing in Rockford now. What's happening instead? This:

One of the few thriving metalworking industries here is the business of scrap metal - mainly because of voracious demand from Chinese steel mills. Some of the metal is discarded industrial machinery from factories that have closed.

"China has a need for a tremendous amount of raw material," said Bill Day, chief financial officer at Joseph Behr & Sons, a large trader in scrap metal here.

Ouch.