Everyone has heard this sentiment at some point in their lives, often to justify the "service economy." Great goal for an individual, but how does that make sense??
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"Service economy" jobs feed off people who produce products for a living, aka creating value. Without manufacturing, what producers do we have? The tech industry? The whole of America cannot subsist off the tech industry. So what's left? Construction? Farming? America is supposed to survive off providing healthcare and financial services to farmers and Google employees?
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To work in tech, or in most service sectors like finance, law, medicine, data analytics, etc, let's say your IQ needs to be about 1 standard deviation above the mean. That leaves about 80% of Americans in the cold. Overestimation? Maybe, but probably not far from the truth.
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So how does the service economy achieve a 5% unemployment rate? Top service job sectors are education/healthcare with 26M employees in schools, hospitals, and social services, and 23M employees in "government." LOLLLLL
So you have:
- government-funded (or directly government-run) schools, universities, and hospitals employing the biggest chunk of people
- then another 23M people explicitly paid by the government
- then millions of women in the private business sector who are essentially subsidized by government-mandated email jobs
- then the transportation and UberEats sector that feeds off these people's Amazon deliveries and takeout orders
- then the legions of people on disability or food stamps or not making enough to actually pay taxes
- then the remainder of the population that actually creates some kind of value (excluding service jobs like legal, financial, business services, etc)
Our country runs off unlimited debt and pixie dust.
While a great portion of the US economy is service sector, government, and military, one of the anchors is innovation and intellectual property. Especially in the areas of medicine and computers. While we are certainly not the only ones, we are the most open and available for other countries to engage with. However, this also means untrustworthy actors, like China, will take advantage of us.
Regarding manufacturing, much of it is old technology and doesn't fit with the theme of innovation and intellectual property.
So, our debt is backed up by exporting everything that makes us great, and the military.
And, yes, college is pointless for >68% of the population.