The insane thing about this discussion is that America does still manufacture a huge amount of products that are used all over the world, and the people that make them are paid salaries that are the envy of the world! Many of the people working in this industry are posting on this site!

It's just that because those products don't come in boxes anymore but are distributed over the Internet people think they don't count?

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smallmancontrov 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The balance of trade accounts for "export of computer services," because of course it does, and the account is in deficit in spite of these, because of course it is. The insane thing is that you tried to offer this "insight" without even bothering to check!

	▲	pjc50 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		My point is that people are over focusing on manufacturing of physical goods while ignoring all the other aspects of the balance of payments, or indeed the internal US economy. (Also, if you're trying to reduce imports, that messes up the balance of payments of your trade partners who get mad, and if you do it obnoxiously enough then other countries start substituting away your exports)
	▲	scott_weber 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		My read of "manufacture a huge amount of products" was that it's not even about software. America is still the world's second largest manufacturing economy, and per capita produces more than China! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing Most of this manufacturing is just not consumer facing.

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like_any_other 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> America does still manufacture a huge amount of products

US industrial (absolute, not per capita) production hasn't grown since 2007: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/INDPRO

But the population has increased by 13.5%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta...

It's one hell of a gamble to rely so much on software "products", while anything that software actually runs on is made in Asia. Building up a software industry will be a lot easier than it was to grow the industrial and tech ecosystem. And that ecosystem will give sweetheart deals to homegrown software, while extorting yours. Sorry, did I say "will"? I meant it's already doing so:

Apple CEO Tim Cook "secretly" signed an agreement worth more than $275 billion with Chinese officials, promising that Apple would help to develop China's economy and technological capabilities - https://www.macrumors.com/2021/12/07/apple-ceo-tim-cook-secr...