Economics - how do resourceful people help to build a country's economy?

Economy comes from the Greek word oikonomia, which means a household. The English word means management, as in the class "home economy". Since management always comes down to pincing pennies, the word comes to mean frugality, but it still basically means management. All the purchases made by all the people in an area add up to what we call "the economy" for that area, but we tend to assume that "the economy" is some spiritual beast with a mind of its own. It is not. It is simply the total of all purchasing decisions, measured in the local currency as a matter of convenience.

You can't go around insisting that people use the word correctly because most people don't know what they are saying in any case. If you reject what they are saying, they just don't know any other way to say it. Most often the problem is politicians talking about boosting the economy when what they mean is they want to print some more phony money so they can look like heroes. An economy is strengthened by entrepreneurs building businesses, and that is not done by any political maneuvering. Politics and economics are intimately associated, but don't ever mistake one for the other.