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After 150 Years, the American Productivity Miracle Is 'Over' (qz.com)
An anonymous reader shares an article on Quartz: Economist Robert Gordon has spent his career studying what makes the US labor force one of the world's most productive. And he has some bad news. American workers still produce some of most economic activity per hour of any economy in the world. But the near-miraculous productivity growth that essentially transformed the US into one of the world's most affluent societies is permanently in the country's rearview mirror. In his new book, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the Northwestern University professor lays out the case that the productivity miracle underlying the American way of life was largely a one-time deal. It was driven by a flurry of technologies -- electric lights, telephones, automobiles, indoor plumbing -- that fundamentally transformed millions of American lives within a matter of decades. By comparison, Gordon argues, today's technological advancements -- Uber, Facebook, Amazon.com -- will touch the productivity of the American economy lightly -- if at all. And a combination of demographic factors, such as the aging of the US population, and sociological problems such as growing inequality and educational performance that's worsened in comparison to many other rich nations, will stymie economic growth for the foreseeable future.For those not following Gordon's work, he has been expressing these views for quite some time now. Here's
his TED talk from 2013 It shouldn't come as a surprise that many strongly disagree with Gordon's views. Kevin Kelly wrote in 2013: I think Robert Gordon is wrong about his conclusion: According to Gordon growth has stalled in the internet age. This question was first asked by Robert Solow in 1987 and Gordon's answer is that there are 6 'headwinds' six negative, or contrary forces which deduct growth from the growth due to technology in the US (Gordon reiterates he is only speaking of the US). The six 'headwinds' slowing down growth are the aging of the US population, stagnant levels of education, rising inequality, outsourcing and globalization, environmental constraints, and household and government debt. I agree with Gordon about these headwinds, particularly the first one, which he also sees as the most important. Where Gordon is wrong is his misunderstanding and underestimating of the power of technological growth before it meets these headwinds. First, as mentioned above, he underestimates the value of the innovations that the internet has brought us. They seem trivial compared to running water and electric lights, but in fact, as billions around the world show us, they are just as valuable. [...] So the 3rd Industrial Revolution is not really computers and the internet, it is the networking of everything. And in that regime we are just at the beginning of the beginning. We have only begun to connect everything to everything and to make little network minds everywhere. It may take another 80 years for the full effect of this revolution to be revealed. In the year 2095 when economic grad students are asked to review this paper of Robert Gordon and write about why he was wrong back in 2012, they will say things like "Gordon missed the impact from the real inventions of this revolution: big data, ubiquitous mobile, quantified self, cheap AI, and personal work robots. All of these were far more consequential than stand alone computation, and yet all of them were embryonic and visible when he wrote his paper. He was looking backwards instead of forward." You might also find Freakonomics' Stephen J. Dubner views on this interesting.
What you don't get is that America's comparative advantage is bullshit, AKA "marketing".
Science and math are the same in Timbuktu as here, so science and math brains are a cheap commodity on the world market. We cannot compete here on those.
All the bullshit financial and tech fads and bubbles start in USA for a reason.
About the only time funds from other countries flow into the USA is when we trick them into the next bubble. They keep falling for it, perhaps as a kind of Ponzi scheme where they want to profit on it before the bottom falls out. Thus, they may know better, but are hoping to sell to even bigger suckers.
But, the 3rd world hasn't figured out how to bullshit to the developed world yet, leaving that specialty to us still. If and when they figure it out, then we may lose our last comparative advantage and become a 3rd-world country.
As the 3rd world climbs up to the next rung on the following ladder, we have to skip ahead to the next level, and make that our comparative advantage.
1. Mechanical & steam revolution
2. Electrical revolution
3. Electronic revolution (transistors etc.)
4. Digital revolution
5. Bullshit revolution (marketing)
Hug a bullshitter: they keep us alive.
Table-ized A.I.
Let me help you with this.
Let's say you did exactly as you suggested. Using 60 seconds of research and some basic intelligence, I can advise you that:
1) You should probably not have paid cash if FRB reporting was your concern, inasmuch as an $11k transaction not in cash is not reportable.
2) The chemical company is not required to report anything for the sale of potassium ferricyanide.
3) No agencies have standing to prevent the sale of potassium ferricyanide.
4) There are no transportation regulations pertaining to potassium ferricyanide.
Fine, I get it, you chose a bad chemical to try to make your point with. But the problem is, to find a chemical that supports your point, it would actually be dangerous I don't give fuck-all about your fascio-libertarian economics if it means somebody can just drive a truck past my house full of enough hydrogen peroxide to blow up my whole neighborhood, without any public body being involved.
There were 4 causes of the mortgage crisis:
1) politicians of all stripes had their hand in the cookie jar and were in bed with wall-street.
2) libtards forced the banks to give loans to people who had ZERO business owning a house (not nearly enough income, horrible credit scores, massive debt)
3) the federal government (through Fannie Mae) agreed to buy up ANY mortgage after 6 months, meaning the lenders only had to find people who could make 6 payments (instead of the traditional 360), further incentivizing the lowering of standards.
4) Ridiculously low interest rates
What do they all have in common? Big federal government. Limited government would have never allowed this because the banks lending to people who had no business owning a home would simply go out of business.