Wealth has always been created, virtually by definition, when individuals use their growing knowledge, in conjunction with an expanding capital stock, to produce goods and services of value. The process of wealth creation in the United States has evolved in a number of important ways.
Over the last century, we have learned how to be more efficient in meeting the needs of consumers, and thus we have moved from producing essentials to the production of more discretionary goods and services. Moreover, these goods and services have been, over time, increasingly less constrained by the limits of physical bulk.