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>promising something it can not deliver without bankrupting the country. If the government can not get something basic like covering subsistence-level costs fo

>promising something it can not deliver without bankrupting the country. If the government can not get something basic like covering subsistence-level costs for its population over 62 working without bankrupting the country, the government is broken, the economic system is broken and shutting it down is an appropriate response. Technology and efficiency has caused labor productivity to increase [1] and that increase has not been captured in wages. It has been instead captured by private capital as profit. 1. https://www.lemonde.fr/blog/piketty/2017/01/09/of-productivity-in-france-and-in-germany/ https://www.lemonde.fr/blog/piketty/2017/01/09/of-productivi...

LeftHandPath 4y ago
Fascinating article. Loved this quote in particular: > The truth is that this trade surplus is not really a choice: it is the outcome of decentralised decisions made by millions of economic actors and in the absence of an adequate mechanism for correction. To put it simply: there is no pilot in the plane, or at least the pilots available are not very accurate.
dh2022 4y ago
The reason for discrepancy between productivity growth and wages stagnant is because the productivity initiatives were created by a few people that benefited handsomely, not by the masses employed in call centers / coffee shops / warehouses. I think one probable reason for this change was technology - technology made spreading knowledge and controlling processes among thousands of entities a lot cheaper. Who are these few people? Most likely you will find them in corporate centers. These people constantly fine tune processes, haggle with suppliers, diversify their suppliers, create new machines, lobby for legislation to make off-shoring easier, etc... I had the opportunity to work 4 years in Amazon as Financial Analyst. None of the cost savings initiatives came from call centers / distribution centers. Even more to the point, as part of ACES program, bright motivated individuals in call centers / distribution centers would be picked up and brought to HQ so their initiatives can be applied to the entire company. When I worked as Financial Analyst with Starbucks there was only one cost saving initiative that came from a store manager - that store manager figured out how to use less milk for the lattes. All the other cost saving initiatives came from HQ.
moremetadata 4y ago
No mention of Lichtenstein when it mentions The Emirates, Norway or Luxemburg. > In contrast, the persistent backwardness in British productivity, which never reached the American level, is usually attributed to the historical weaknesses in the educational system. The British state getting rid of grammar schools is often highlighted, but during the 70's and 80's the old rote ways of teaching were scrapped, but continued in overseas territories and the results spoke for themselves, higher literacy and education were achieved on average in these overseas territories than back in the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rote_learning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rote_learning "However, advocates of traditional education have criticized the new American standards as slighting learning basic facts and elementary arithmetic, and replacing content with process-based skills. In math and science, rote methods are often used, for example to memorize formulas." This US driven process based thinking, is an attempt and demonstration of the US' desire to have everyone in front of a computer where they can be monitored surreptitiously. Something else not mentioned is the difference in the US diet compared to the European diet. If you need a diet to boost GDP, to constantly stimulate then the US diet is it, but it will burn people out more quickly with ill health. The European model with higher food standards currently is a good standard, especially when comparing how the Chinese have been taught to eat anything that moves, hence their diverse range of palatable foods. This blog, could enhance its credibility by taking into account factors like diet and health care, instead of just muddying the waters.

LeftHandPath 4y ago

Fascinating article. Loved this quote in particular: > The truth is that this trade surplus is not really a choice: it is the outcome of decentralised decisions made by millions of economic actors and in the absence of an adequate mechanism for correction. To put it simply: there is no pilot in the plane, or at least the pilots available are not very accurate.

dh2022 4y ago

The reason for discrepancy between productivity growth and wages stagnant is because the productivity initiatives were created by a few people that benefited handsomely, not by the masses employed in call centers / coffee shops / warehouses. I think one probable reason for this change was technology - technology made spreading knowledge and controlling processes among thousands of entities a lot cheaper. Who are these few people? Most likely you will find them in corporate centers. These people constantly fine tune processes, haggle with suppliers, diversify their suppliers, create new machines, lobby for legislation to make off-shoring easier, etc... I had the opportunity to work 4 years in Amazon as Financial Analyst. None of the cost savings initiatives came from call centers / distribution centers. Even more to the point, as part of ACES program, bright motivated individuals in call centers / distribution centers would be picked up and brought to HQ so their initiatives can be applied to the entire company. When I worked as Financial Analyst with Starbucks there was only one cost saving initiative that came from a store manager - that store manager figured out how to use less milk for the lattes. All the other cost saving initiatives came from HQ.

moremetadata 4y ago

No mention of Lichtenstein when it mentions The Emirates, Norway or Luxemburg. > In contrast, the persistent backwardness in British productivity, which never reached the American level, is usually attributed to the historical weaknesses in the educational system. The British state getting rid of grammar schools is often highlighted, but during the 70's and 80's the old rote ways of teaching were scrapped, but continued in overseas territories and the results spoke for themselves, higher literacy and education were achieved on average in these overseas territories than back in the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rote_learning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rote_learning "However, advocates of traditional education have criticized the new American standards as slighting learning basic facts and elementary arithmetic, and replacing content with process-based skills. In math and science, rote methods are often used, for example to memorize formulas." This US driven process based thinking, is an attempt and demonstration of the US' desire to have everyone in front of a computer where they can be monitored surreptitiously. Something else not mentioned is the difference in the US diet compared to the European diet. If you need a diet to boost GDP, to constantly stimulate then the US diet is it, but it will burn people out more quickly with ill health. The European model with higher food standards currently is a good standard, especially when comparing how the Chinese have been taught to eat anything that moves, hence their diverse range of palatable foods. This blog, could enhance its credibility by taking into account factors like diet and health care, instead of just muddying the waters.