Wow, America's economy is almost 80% services.?

Question

Is this OK? What ever happened to manufacturing (yea, other than outsourcing)?

Should we all sell insurance to eachother?

Answer 1

Mostly manufacturing got very efficient, and in recent decades we started importing more manufactured goods than we export. The fraction of GDP devoted to agriculture has also fallen even though we have increased our food exports. Also as the price of manufactured goods and food falls people devote less time to household production and instead join the market work force. This causes them to buy more services because they are busy,
For the changing components of GDP see graph at http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2007/07/02/gross-domestic-product-by-industry-winners-losers/
Note that construction, entertainment, education and health care are up as well as finance, and all sectors related to the production and distribution of goods are down.

Answer 2

Well you're a consumer. What things in your life that you spend money on would you like to do without? iPod? Computer? Cell phone? Internet access? Video games? Restaurants? Music? Movies? Sports?

The move to services is merely a reflection of the fact that the economy has become so productive that our basic needs are easily taken care of, and we are able to seek out ever more needs to satisfy (which requires companies and workers to meet those needs).

That is a profoundly good thing. It is silly to have a bias for the production of manufactured goods -- services that people want are every bit as legitimate and valuable as hard objects, and in fact they are the foundation for a lot of manufactured goods (ie, the iPod is just a device that conveys the product of the entertainment service industry; the cell phone is useless without telecom service, etc)

Furthermore, we simply could not have become so much more productive (hence richer) while still devoting our populations to manufacturing. There'd simply be no markets to absorb all the product. We'd have to be making enough cars and washing machines for 7 planets just to employ everybody. It becomes a logical absurdity. If we WANT to become richer, we have to branch out and create value from things other than manufactured objects -- which is what the service economy does.

By the way, the U.S. DOES manufacture an enormous amount of goods -- despite what people think. The U.S. is the #2 exporter of manufactured goods (behind Germany, not China), and far and away the lead exporter of services, and is the #1 exporter overall.

Answer 3

You can sell insurance, I will keep providing reasonably priced legal services.

Answer 4

USA is learning from the Philippines .

Answer 5

It's called captitalism mate.Which eventually will colapse because in the end we need production.

Answer 6

YEAH JOEY IM ON CRACK...................SNIFF SNIFF OOOH I THINK HALF MY NOSTRIL DROPED OFF.