>>29
GDP is meaningless
Bubbles eventually burst, so long term GDP is meaningful. The point is to have an efficient economic system where price bubbles burst quickly so they don't grow to astronomical sizes and warp the economy for a few years. The dotcom bubble, Enron and credit crunch were all revealed by the market, not government regulators, it is mathematically impossible to centrally plan the price mechanism, you need independent actors to quantify the utility of various actions from the chaotic and unpredictable natural world.
The irony is that while Keynesians dream of the state playing a wider role in the economy this would only become feasible if the state abandoned inefficient Keynesian economics.
manufacturing base
The US is primarily a service economy, we sell brand names, technology and expertise.