A GDP of bullshit and fakery doesn’t create anything real.
Every DEI co-ordinator, HR wokeness enforcer, useless diversity hire “adds” to GDP. But they are a net minus. Same with Green mandates. Every ludicrous increase in electrical generating costs “adds” to GDP.
Look at industrial production. Eg. China produces 1 billion tons of steel a year. USA less than 100 million. And that goes for the whole industrial sector.
https://www.statista.com/chart/20858/top-10-countries-by-share-of-global-manufacturing-output/
(Russia actually passed the USA in 2020, but the USA has caught up again. With the incorporation of the Donbass into Russia, it will regain the lead)
USA GDP is largely “services”. But you need industrial production to win wars.
A GDP based on credit default swaps, OnlyFans subscriptions, illegal taxis and renting out rooms (Uber, AirB&B) and retail margins on imported ch!nk crap doesn’t create anything capable of use by the military.
Electric power and industry would be the first things to be destroyed in any serious war fought by major powers.
The USA needs huge, widely dispersed, stock piles to win wars.
The USA is the #2 industrial country in the world.
The USA produces more than the next four countries combined - Japan, Germany, South Korea, India.
American industrial output per employee is the highest in the world.
The USA has just 13 million manufacturing workers.
The USA will produce close to $4.2 trillion of industrial goods in 2023.
The average USA industrial worker produces more than $300,000 of industrial goods per year.
China has about 100 million industrial workers.
The average Chinese industrial worker produces about $50,000 of goods per worker.
Bottom Line...
USA investors demand a high rate of return.
USA investors tend to avoid manufacturing because the international competition is intense, and foreign labor is paid a small fraction of what American workers demand.