Comment by helij

This is simply not true. Did you walk any US, UK and other first-world countries factories? A lot of them have separate machinist shops with tens or hundreds of machinists who can make pretty much anything given materials and time. Even every other small factory has a machinist shop where all kinds of things are made including whole machines, parts, improvements for existing machines, etc. In my small town there are two small modern machinist shops that can make anything you want. Look around and see if there are any factories or small shops and ask if you can take a look. You would be amazed by locally made high tech you see and what can be done.

I'm not really sure when and where the "we've lost the ability to make things" came from?

I agree that other countries caught up though.