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To: TheTimeOfMan
The only real economy is manufacturing...   ...all comes down to this. People make stuff.

So services don't count. 

In the late 1800's folks used to scoff at manufacturing saying that the only thing we really need is food and you can't eat a machine.  So my grandfather bought a farm in Indiana and my dad's family starved.  Folks found out that while a farm can only produce so much food, a farm plus a tractor could produce a hundred times as much food, and farm workers went from half the U.S. workforce to half of one percent --and we now produce more food than ever.

It's been the same ways w/ manufacturing, that a factory can only make so much stuff but a factory with a better layout can produce a hundred times as much, and manufacturing workers just don't need to be as big a chunk of the labor force anymore.  Things change.

15 posted on 10/02/2015 3:10:26 PM PDT by expat_panama
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To: expat_panama

Services only count in so much as they support ‘manufacturing’. And manufacturing in the sense I am using it is any tangible good. So a farmer is a manufacturer of food. The electric company manufactures electricity. Most govt. is parasitic. Software companies support manufacturing in that they (usually) make the process more efficient. Services may or may not indirectly support manufacturing efficiency and so may or may not produce real wealth. Most services do even if they only create more free time for workers as this (to a point) co-relates to increased worker productivity while on the job.

It is not a traditional way of looking at economic sectors.

Bottom line - we cannot continue to consume at a higher rate than we produce real things that we can trade with other people for real things.


56 posted on 10/05/2015 8:33:18 AM PDT by TheTimeOfMan
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