As you say, an interesting side discussion.
I’d like to, tentatively, suggest that not all services, and for that matter, not all of any of the other categories mentioned, create (new) wealth.
During the days of the USSR, lots and lots of manufacturing went on, creating “stuff” that nobody wanted. Did the manufacturing of this stuff “create wealth?” I seriously doubt it. In fact, I would suggest that the time, energy and materials sunk into making this stuff reduced the country’s net wealth.
Same with services. The most obvious example is governmental regulation. Much though not all of the effort expended in these services reduces the net wealth of the economy. But of course there is a great deal of consulting and other purely private business services that reduce wealth creation.
I’ve often wondered if it would be possible to create an accurate net wealth creation index for economic activities, organizations and individuals. An activity that is entirely positive in creating wealth would be scored at +100, while one that is entirely negative would be scored at -100, with of course when consumption of wealth and generation balances, the score would be 0.
Given that we don't have free markets — the government regulation you mention, being the largest hindrance to free markets. Also, government taxation and spending is almost entirely outside of free market forces (although, governments do usually use competitive bids, etc. to bring some market forces to bear). Centrally-planned economies — as in the USSR, also have no free markets. Central planners attempt to use various devices (including, copying prices prevailing in free-market economies) to assign value to goods and services. These efforts always fall short of the results of free markets.
Governments use cost-benefit analysis, and other techniques to attempt to assign a value to projects. This is quite similar to the index you mention. Also, governments and think tanks have produced estimates of the cost of regulations (the -ve side of your index).
Let me add a bit to my previous reply to you; regarding the effects of government regulations, and the value of services.
To simplify things, I’ll focus on just accounting services. All businesses use accountants — whether embedded as employees, or contracted out. I’ve stated the case for these services contributing to wealth creation — however, as a side-effect of government regulation, that is not always the case.
Businesses need accountants to see whether they’re winning or losing. Business strategy requires good accounting data (amongst other things). To the extent that accounting leads to better strategies, it definitely contributes to wealth. If all wealth-creating businesses were free to only use the accounting services they wanted to use (and pay for) — then all of those services would be contributing to wealth creation.
However, a great deal of accounting services are used only to satisfy the requirements of various regulations (taxation; affirmative action, environmental, etc.). Not all of that government-imposed accounting is a dead-weight loss; but much of it is. The dead-weight part does not contribute to wealth creation; and some of it may even destroy wealth.
There is a pretty fundamental difference between manufacturing goods no one wants due to central planning and manufacturing goods in a free market that will be bought of customers’ free will, else ultimately the manufacturing firm will go out of business at some point. If you do not understand this, why are you on a conservative web site?
Interestingly there are signs GM has been channel stuffing to pump up their numbers, so we in the U.S. are edging towards the former situation in some areas.