Building houses, and agriculture creating food is producing something of value. Producing roofing shingles is good too, but the person replacing them is a wealth absorbing service. Another example car sales.
If I buy a car from a neighbor for 1,000 and sell it to another neighbor for $2,000, I just took or absorbed, $1000 of wealth from the economy, and contributed nothing of value in return.
You could say I gave liquidity or money to the seller, but he bought the car from a foreign nation, putting their people to work producing things of wealth in their country.
The ideal situation would be a US Gov’t that acts like a labor union, to protect each and every US business from foreign completion, so they could make bigger profits, pay for medical insurance and pay higher wages, so the US Gov’t can get higher tax income which it has been losing since 1970.
To a $36, trillion national debt on our credit card and paying enormous interest on it, because we constantly had stupid or anti American or pro foreign leaders that think we are too wealthy and that want the USA has to be a hero and create more middle class people in China et all. Unfortunately the good guys finish last. Thats us.
The rest of the world has been feeding on the US consumer like we are a big dead carcass. I being in manufacturing, watched this whole mess unfold from the start. I think the highest tax rate was 90% back then.
