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I was curious about this conjecture that the US doesn't make things, while Germany does. So I dug up [0], a table of "Manufacturing, value added (current US$)",

I was curious about this conjecture that the US doesn't make things, while Germany does. So I dug up [0], a table of "Manufacturing, value added (current US$)", and here are the top five countries for 2013: 1: China $2.9bn, 2: United States $1.9bn, 3: Japan $904m, 4: Germany $745m, 5: Korea $368m Manufacturing in Germany may contribute a higher percentage of GDP, but it does not appear to have a larger (in dollars, according to this data) manufacturing base than the US in absolute terms. [0]: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.IND.MANF.CD?order=wbapi_data_value_2013+wbapi_data_value&sort=desc http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.IND.MANF.CD?order=wba...

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
jazzyk 11y ago
It would be hard to expect Germany to produce more in absolute terms, with Germany's population being 25 % of US population (US=320M, Germany=80M). With its population 4x higher, the US only produces 2.5x more stuff. That's a huge difference.
- kasey_junk 11y ago
  It's a huge difference but it isn't particularly telling about any larger points. A large component of US output is agricultural or natural resources which are not included in that number (nor is software for that matter).