General Electric, America’s most important company and the world’s largest, recently delivered a message to the American people: Export. GM boss Jeffrey Immelt recently spoke about the need to revive exportation in the U.S. economy:

“Many bought into the idea that America could go from a technology-based, export-oriented powerhouse to a services-led, consumption-based economy - and somehow still expect to prosper. That idea was flat wrong. And what did we get in the bargain? We’ve seen a great vanishing of wealth. Our competitive edge has slipped away, and this has hit the middle class hard.

As a nation, we’ve been consuming more than we earn, saved too little and taken on far too much debt. Growth in research and development has slowed. Our country has made too little progress on some of the defining challenges of our time - like clean energy and affordable health care. Our budget and trade deficits have reached levels that are clearly not sustainable...

Recently my colleague Peter Loescher, the CEO of Siemens, extolled the importance of Germany as an exporting country. In my career, I have never heard an American CEO say that the United States should be leading in exports. Well, I am saying it today: This country ought to be, and we can be, not just the world’s leading market but a leading exporter as well.”

Immelt captured just what a new American economy needs: manufacturing. For too long, the U.S. economy has been moved through finances - the trading and re-trading of money - and moving more and more away from actually producing tangible goods. This was a mirage. The U.S. economy could not survive just on consumption and Wall Street. Until recently, the financial service industry accounted for 40% of corporate profits. And yet only a small number of Americans were employed in the industry. It got too big, but nobody saw the danger because the presumption was that this is what the “new economy” should look like.

But as America and the world has realized, relying on finance to lead an entire economy is a recipe for instability.

Immelt presented his remarks by noting that General Electric will build a new factory for the first time in years. The factory will be build in Detroit, it will be known at the GE Manufacturing Technology and Software Center and employ 1,100 people.

Immelt represents the direction that America needs to go. Which isn’t really new, but a return to an America where people make real goods and the middle class is secure in its position. An exporting America again. And what better company to lead than one of the most American companies?