[mrsmith]

"Service sector data for December showed the slowdown is spreading to the dominant driver of economic growth. "

There's the problem: the service sector doesn't create much wealth, and creating wealth is the only real growth.

[central_va]

Service sector is value added and doesn’t really create wealth it just transfers it around. Wealth is created ( i.e. something of value is created from nothing ) in only three ways; mining, manufacturing and growing (agriculture).