That's why I mentioned the production of "goods and services".

But as it turns out, services are often more profitable and attract more investment since they require no manufacturing, and can be automated and "produced" by purely administrative and automated methods.; not as many pesky skilled employees to have to manage or compete in the marketplace for. They are also easier to market with pure communications.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with services, I'm sure Babylonian businessmen provided them, but the idea of a service-oriented economy is scary. We can't survive by just selling each other pizza and doing each other's laundry. Manufacturing is relying more on cheap foreign labor, and less on domestic. The remaining service jobs simply are not replacing the mnufacturing ones as far as quality or even pay or, perhaps most important, the self respect of the worker.

I realize a lot of these post-industrial shifts are due to modern conditions, I'm not saying its an evil plot by ruthless capitalist cabals, or that it can solved by passing a law. But this is an issue that must be addressed and these shortcomings must be mitigated, or we will wind up with a two-tier society of burger-flippers and managers, and no one in between.