So much of the economic action these days is in the knowledge economy, rather than in products that move across the border in tractortrailers.
The majority of the value of the Standard and Poor’s 500 is now tied up in intangible things – intellectual property, data, brands and the like. Many of the largest and fastest- growing companies – public and private – are in areas such as social media (Facebook, Twitter and Snap), cloud computing (Amazon and Microsoft), online streaming and content (Netflix, Google, Apple and Spotify), ecommerce (Amazon and eBay), ride sharing (Uber) and online payments (PayPal). Rest