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“What Percentage of Our Economy Is Fake?”

90% or more in my book. Otherwise the math would have worked and Russia would be on their knees begging for mercy, due to our ‘killer sanctions’.

Specifically, most government spending, but also HUGE spending in healthcare, where they don’t even tell people how to prevent diabetes (don’t eat carbs, obviously), but rather SALIVATE at the prospect of more, very sick, ‘customers’ to bring into ‘their system’. Other stuff include the VAST over-regulation of cars (which shouldn’t cost more than $10k these days, but are forced to include insane things like air bags, lane centering, etc.). And then the regulations, like the one now in the IRC (International Residential Code) that REQUIRES sprinklers in all new houses (not universally law, but getting there). The list is endless.

(and, for those not zotted yet, please don’t give us the crap about Russia’s economy crashing next week - you know FULL WELL that’s not true)

MtnClimber: "What Percentage of Our Economy Is Fake?”

BobL: "90% or more in my book.
Otherwise the math would have worked and Russia would be on their knees begging for mercy, due to our ‘killer sanctions’."

Here's what we know for sure:

% share of World's GDP (PPP) 2025: China 20%, US 16%, EU 16%,
Indo-Pac allies (Japan, etc.) 9%, India 8%, Middle East 5%, Russia 3%, all others 23%

In 1952 about 1/3 of American workers (~19 million) worked in manufacturing producing 1/3 of US GDP = virtually all US needs plus a 10% trade surplus.
By 1979 US manufacturing peaked at 21 million workers, now 20% of US GDP & workforce but already a 15% trade deficit.
Today US manufacturing employs only 10% of workers (13 million) producing 10% of US GDP and a 33% trade deficit.

Is the US non-manufacturing economy "real"?
Yes, for sure most of it is.
Also, blatant money laundering is illegal and so won't be included in official statistics.

But there's something else to remember here -- virtually every country on earth cooks its own economic books to make themselves look less prosperous than they actually are.
The reason is to reduce the value of their currency and thus increase their exports to the US while reducing their imports from the US.
This is what Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) tries to adjust for and the results show countries like China and the EU with GDP's equal to, or greater than, the US, especially when you compare their manufacturing outputs.

Regardless, in hard economic numbers -- not $ equivalents but pounds, units and Terawatts of electricity production, China's economy dwarfs the US and EU combined.
Compared to the USA, China produces:

13 X more steel (1 billion tons vs US 80 million tons)
3 X more vehicles (31 million vs US 11 million)
1,000 X more commercial ship tonnage (51 million tons vs US 51,000 tons)
2.5 X more electric power (10,000 Terawatts vs US 4,000 Terawatts)
2 X more in overall goods production

Such numbers suggest that China's economy dominates the world in basic manufacturing, in much the way the US economy dominated from the 1940s through 1980s.

But GDP numbers, especially nominal GDP numbers, don't reflect such Chinese dominance.
That's because GDP counts all economic activity as equal according to nominal dollar values -- GDP doesn't distinguish between, for examples, a $billion worth of steel and a $billion worth of entertainment.
Those are equally valuable in terms of GDP.

The US economy is 10% manufacturing and 20% all goods production, including construction, mining, oil, gas & utilities.
China's economy is 27% manufacturing and 40% all goods production.

US technological advancements are not insignificant, but they are also highly temporary and amount to only a few years ahead at best.

So, what's real and not real?
That all depends on how you count it and what you are most interested in.

Bottom line: the US is no longer the dominant manufacturing power we were after 1945.