You have any data on these changes? Are you talking about products that are now counted as manufacturing that once were counted as something else?
I talking about all sorts of changes in our economy and its makeup over the years. For instance:
1. The chart I linked in #51 shows depression era GDP of about $100 billion. What's it now: $10 trillion.
2. Our first $100 billion federal budget occurred under JFK in the early '60s. What is it now: $3 to $4 trillion? I've lost track with Obama and his budgets.
3. Our population has doubled since the '60s and we have a far larger workforce due to population and the entry of more women into the workforce.
4. And how many new manufactured products that didn't even exist a few decades back are now produced? Personal computers, cell phones, and all the accessories that go with those, and software, etc., and many more. There are far more products being produced now than in the past, which would increase manufacturing output, here and outsourced.
5. And I repeat something: it'd be interesting to know, over several decades, the value of manufactured products purchased in the US each year, and what percentage of that was actually produced here.
I'm saying the elements that make up our economy have changed so much, and there has been so much growth even after inflation adjustments, that simply taking one element and expressing it as a percentage of GDP has little validity because those elements that make up GDP, or the denominator have changed too much.
And, a couple of long term comparisons to GDP that do seem valid: the portion taken by government as taxes, and the relationship to the money supply.