I hear what you say... but

'It strikes me that there is a giant, overarching difference between veterinary care and regular medical care, and that is that the former is barely regulated by the government, while the latter is so regulated that even now -- without socialized health care -- many doctors feel as if they spent most of their time being bureaucrats. Is that it? I'm sure my vet kept records for Puff, but I'd be willing to bet they consisted of little more than a couple of paragraphs summarizing the diagnosis, the procedure, and his recovery. And I'd also be willing to bet that for the same procedure on a boy, if all of the records were all printed out they'd be a stack of documents inches thick.'

http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2009/09/a_dog_is_a_rat.html

Trouble is... and I hate myself even as I type these words... if you look at where many of the high paying jobs are in the US, where manufacturing has been shedding millions and millions of jobs, it is in Health Care management and such related boondoggles.

To me, one of the great unanswered questions of the post-manufacturing economies is, what can we do?

We can't all be plumbers, bin-men, doctors, roofers, golf commentators or firemen? Can we? Doesn't somebody somewhere actually have to, you know, make stuff? And what about all the dunderheads who are too stupid even to be a plumber? The ones who used to be the cannon fodder for large-scale manufacturing? Are they going to sit around in their council houses taking heroin FOR EVER?

Perhaps somebody with an economics degree could point me in the right direction...