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.
We need a multitude of jobs and job types to be self reliant. There is value in both directions. The farmer benefits from having the business he works with US owned. The millionaire banker benefits from his food being grown domestically. Having an actual manufacturing base, a labor base, an agricultural base, an innovation base, a financial sector based, a tech base, an energy base, are all vital for each other. Whatever you don't have you are reliant on others for. Best case they rip you off for it. Worst case, they deprive you of it entirely.
The US can do without cheaply made shit. We can't go without food.
China gets about 7% of its food from imports. That's only what they admit to.