If you haven't seen the news in whatever media you read, this should be considered good news in any service-oriented industry. Service industries in the US unexpectedly grew for the first time since December, helping the overall national economy weather a credit contraction and a manufacturing downturn. The Institute for Supply Management's index of nonmanufacturing businesses, which make up almost 90% of the economy, rose to 52 in April from 46 in March. A reading greater than 50 signals growth.
I know that my own volume of calls was well below the norm for the first 2 or 3 months of the new year, but the phone has been ringing off the proverbial hook in April and so far into May. Maybe the worst is over?
I'm afraid you may be looking for the silver lining in a dark cloud here Mark. Our "leaders" have intentionally exported OUR industry to presumably equalize the world's economies. We are now a predominately service based economy and I believe that's a totally unsustainable situation. As we become more and more socialist, Americans are working more government jobs, a wider variety of police type jobs and social service type jobs, and the upcoming government "industry", the health care business.
Growth in the service "industry" should be a good thing in a healthy, productive economy, but if 90% of us work in nonmanufacturing jobs, I'm concerned that we're being led down to eventual third world status. Just my thoughts. I was wrong once.
In time, (in theory, anyway) all of the world's economies will ascend to the American level of GNP and prices, so everywhere on earth will be too expensive to actually manufacture things. At that point, probably the VENUSians, or perhaps the Martians, will be the beneficiaries of our planet-
wide high costs of production, and we (all the nations on Earth) will outsource all of the actual making of stuff to those planets. (Ahh, but if we get there and conquer them first,....hmmm.)
