[neocone]

Instant BS stats for your viewing pleasure everybody!

link

I guess in the same vain one can argue the more houses are sold in America i.e generates paper money circulation, the more the worker's productivity goes up.

10 trillion $ of economic productivity means exactly what? It's fiat money and if tomorrow the US reserve prints enough money to increase the amount of $$$ in circulation within the US by 100%, then after hyperinflation the productivity of the US worker will jump 100% too!!!

[kuidaskassikaeb]

I saw an article in Business Week that could shed some light on that. They called it "The true cost of outsourcing". Basically the way the statistics work, if you have a company that sells say tables. If they are making the tables in the United States, at a cost of $1000, and they then close their factory and buy the tables from China for 500 dollars, the economists in the government, will say that the office staff and sales people have increased their productivity by 500 dollars. Nobody knew how large the error is, but they had some pretty impressive examples of error, and there has been a lot of outsourcing going on.

[Denny]

The measure of GDP (Or GNI or GNP, for that matter) are always a bit suspect to me.

For instance, if you were to live in a hostile environment, and within a violent society, and one with many external enemies, so many of your extra living costs go into that GDP number, whether they are valuable by themselves or not.

In that context, the high insurance costs go into GDP. The high police costs go into GDP, the money people expend on locks and security systems and prisons go into the GDP. And, even the high costs incurred to support the military. Because all those tanks and artillery and munitions are part of the GDP too.

Lastly, the fuel you burn to make heat in winter and to cool in summer are part of the GDP.

So, I don't think the GDP is that good of a proxy for quality of life, which is what people usually are thinking when they talk about the economy and productivity. If I can make bullets in volumes three times faster than you, then in a numeric sense I am three times as productive. But, the big question is whether either of us is really productive.

[Ludi]

I think what we all need to do is be much less productive, as part of the powerdown, we need to consume and produce much much less. We all need to kick back and relax and let this system implode.

[Tyler_JC]

Don't they take out inflation when calculating GDP, Productivity, etc.?

If people were more productive, they could work less hours, get paid more money, and enjoy a higher quality of life than if they were less productive.

Productivity is great, waste is not.

[Fiddlerdave]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kuidaskassikaeb', 'I') saw an article in Business Week that could shed some light on that. They called it "The true cost of outsourcing". Basically the way the statistics work, if you have a company that sells say tables. If they are making the tables in the United States, at a cost of $1000, and they then close their factory and buy the tables from China for 500 dollars, the economists in the government, will say that the office staff and sales people have increased their productivity by 500 dollars. Nobody knew how large the error is, but they had some pretty impressive examples of error, and there has been a lot of outsourcing going on.

[Petrodollar]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') saw an article in Business Week that could shed some light on that. They called it "The true cost of outsourcing".

[Doly]

Productivity is defined as the average output per worker, or as how much money a company gets from each worker. Clearly, to increase productivity you have to do one or several of these four things:

1) Get each worker to do more stuff
As you are limited on how many extra hours you can squeeze out of workers, the main ways of achieving this are:
a) Getting more efficient processes
b) New technology, possibly consuming more energy, depending on what it is the stuff you do.

2) Find a way to do the same amount of stuff with less workers
Outsourcing is a great way of achieving this. The solutions that work for (1) also apply here.

3) Increase prices of the stuff you sell
Not practical, unless you do funny things to manipulate markets.

4) Get workers to do different, more expensive stuff
This is generally called "innovation"

American companies like to claim that their methods of increasing productivity are always (1) and (4), but in fact they know they will be measured by the final number, rather than the means they used to achieve it. I suspect (2) and (3) have been used much more frequently in recent years.

[MrBill]

Productivity is rising slower than measured in the USA with profound implications. Basically the American worker is being outsourced as companies find it easier to substitute expensive labor for lower priced imports. 55% of all US imports go into manufacturing, not US final consumption. This, of course, keeps US prices lower and the USA more export competitive, but it is not a measure of US worker productivity. It also makes the US more vulnerable to imported inflation from a weaker US dollar. So if the Fed decides to cut rates next week we can expect oil, wheat and gold as well as every other commodity to continue to rise (as measured in US dollars). It is almost too depressing to contemplate. Sigh...

[bshirt]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'I') think what we all need to do is be much less productive, as part of the powerdown, we need to consume and produce much much less. We all need to kick back and relax and let this system implode.