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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.
Uber, Facebook, Amazon aren't technological advancements. Christ, people are stupid.
Think I'm trolling? Think again:
In a new paper, also cited by Leubsdorf, Danny Yagan at Berkeley suggests that reduced migration is only part of the problem. What has made the aftermath to the 2008-2009 recession so bad is that migration is low at the same time that it has become more necessary than ever. The 2008-2009 recession was especially localized, it hit some places harder than others and in a way that appears to be permanent. But migration has been too slow to solve the problem.
The usual story is that in-and-out migration equalizes wage, unemployment and employment rates across the nation. Some places may be harder hit than others but movement quickly makes the US into one labor market. In the aftermath of this recession, however, that isn’t happening for employment rates. Using a clever research design that looks at workers with similar education and skills doing the same jobs at the same large firms but in different locations, Yagan finds that location continues to matter years after the recession has ended. Workers who worked in the places hardest hit in the 2007-2009 recession have employment rates today that are 1% lower than similar workers in regions that were less hard hit.
I can tell you exactly what happened. People kept being told if they worked harder they'd be rewarded. So they worked harder and harder.
Now, the loudest voices from the conservatives (the group telling everyone to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and work harder) are saying "we never claimed there was a guarantee of a reward" and "shut your whiny entitled mouth" when the highest-producing people in recorded history ask for their reward.
So now the productivity gravy train has come to a screeching halt. Now that the rug of empty promises has been yanked out from under them, the people are showing no interest in working harder for nothing.
There may have been a pause but with us all being on the cusp of so many different breakthrough technologies, like 3D printing, self-driving cars, advances in AI, and lots more exotic stuff coming to fruition in materials research we can easily have another such burst of productivity.
Don't let the pessimists get you down, greatness is always incomprehensible to them and they cannot see it coming even if beaten over the head with it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"TED Talks" ran their course some time ago.
#DeleteChrome
Management Won! Did you hear that guys, Management Won!
When a MBA degree became desirable than an engineering degree, Americans became more interested in imaginary wealth than creating and improving things
While companies are busy measuring smartphone sales as some proxy for how well the industry is doing (and calling the PC market dead), I see a difference between PCs as machines used to do things, and smartphones as ways to waste time. Obviously this isn't exactly true, but in general it is. This is why smartphones have replaced PCs in popularity - people would rather waste time than do work. The media is so focused on getting our "attention" rather than helping us get things done, and we're so connected to that media now, that in my opinion it's obvious why productivity is falling. People aren't really working when they're "working" anymore. They're just distracted.
Also, don't discount the importance of air conditioning in US productivity, especially in the southern US.
That said, there could be a new jump in productivity as better technologies are developed. What if we counteracted smartphones with a drug or a widget that could make you focus?
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
I am not a freedom / open source fanatic BUT let me be captain obvious ...
The reason the exploding internet and data revolution is failing is due to closed data silos. When we have to fight stupid things like obfuscated / or proprietary / or trademarked text file formats that you can't use because of magic laws of no value let alone dealing with anything complicated like unpublished binary formats and purposely closed doors ... you end up not being able to efficiently connect anything to anything. With the recent stupidity, if they prevent us from properly encrypting data we are going to have to cut off outside access altogether ...
The whole culture and economic and legal structure will have to change before you see anything as significant as he predicts.
For at least the last hundred years, they've been writing economics books like really boring Mad Libs:
"The __(segment of economy)__ is going to __(boom/crash)__ in the next __(time window)__ because __(jaggedy line graph of the economy)__ looks a lot like __(other jaggedy line graph that turns sharply up or down)__."
It must be nice to be able to pick your doctoral thesis with a dart board.
I hope that Gordon's prediction is incorrect, but being in the manufacturing industry and seeing the new hires come and go makes me worry.
The millennials are for the most part lazy and dependent. They can't function without their cell phones and this is inside a plant where cell phones are prohibited except for management and supervisors.
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
The "problem" with interconnection is that it propagates outside of just Internet and device-to-device linking.
During the last few decades it has become increasingly easier for people to not only communicate but to travel and work together (or fight), no matter where they are.
This means:
- Salaries across the world are slowly trending towards a midpoint. This will suck for more developed countries and will boost lesser developed countries.
- Productivity will likewise even out: countries where people work 6h a day will no longer be able to sustain that work style. Similarly, countries where people work 12h a day, 6-7 days a week will slowly roll down to less than that.
- Cultures will clash. They already do and it's not pretty. Some countries' culture is 500 years back: they will have to go through a deep transformation to reach present time, or they will bring down more evolved cultures - and then productivity will be the least of our worries as a species.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Economics has very low predictive power. The high numbers of variables it deals with, and the high pace of change in those variables (and even in the set of variables that needs to be considered) make any effort at prediction futile.
The real problem is people just don't realize how well they have it these days
That is incredibly true - a big part of this is that the media which should be researching and pointing this out, is instead over-dramatizing every small problem encountered to a degree that over time, things LOOK worse and worse even as they get better.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
He does mention wage disparity, but that is due to Government activity, not the Market.
This why anarchy, a total absence of government activity, always results in everyone having the same wage.
Wait, what?
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
We could have continued increasing productivity, at least into the foreseeable future.
I remember a couple of decades ago when telecommuting became possible (roughly 1990), and the IRS stepped in with rules that made it less inviting as an option. Among other things, you couldn't deduct the expenses of your home office, and you could no longer be a consultant (1099), you still had to be a regular employee (W-2). Unless, of course, you were a doctor, lawyer, or architect - those three professions were excepted from the rule.
A little later, someone pointed out that GE pays no taxes (among many other businesses), leading to the conclusion that it's nigh impossible to start a business that makes a competing product.
Microsoft did its "embrace, extend, extinguish" thing to a bunch of other companies. Microsoft would "consider purchasing" your software business, sign an NDA and send in some engineers to check out the internals and otherwise determine the fitness of the purchase, choose not to purchase, then come out with a competing product 6 months later.
This happened so many times it became a meme.
(Let's not forget that Microsoft illegally forced itself on many computers. Whole companies sprang up to deal with viruses and other security exploits, while a viable alternative floundered. The first person to purchase a computer and return the Windows software got sued by Microsoft, and had to justify his actions.)
We gave the telecom companies $200 billion to bring everyone up to broadband. They took the money and did nothing - much of the country can't get internet access, Comcast can be the most hated company in America, and mobile phone service is spotty, the quality is choppy, and the communications insecure.
We give away our productivity and resources to other countries for little or no gain, we've been neglecting our roads and bridges, our electric service is outdated and increasingly unreliable, our health care is third-world-class. Our education is top-heavy with administration and mindless rules, and the cost of extended education burdens the student for the rest of their life.
(It's really hard to start a new business, make an innovative invention or do scientific research, when you're burdened with education expenses for the rest of your life, have to hold down a low-paying job just to survive because the high-paying one was outsourced to a H1B, can't get good internet service, and are forced to use Windows compatible software, and have to purchase health insurance at $5,000 per year per family member.)
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This is in stark contrast with, for example, America of the 1920s. Reading newspaper articles of the times shows that the country was hopping with ideas. Just about everyone on the street in NYC had ideas on how to start a business, invent a new machine, or otherwise make their fortune in America.
Immigration was easy, just show up and get registered. Immigration was a self-selecting evolutionary sieve for people who were smart and could get along with other groups. You had to leave your family, community and support system behind, and learn a new language, culture, and laws. But if you could do it, you could make enough money to have the rest of your family come over to join you.
(Nowadays it takes 10 years and $30,000 for a Russian (to use an example) to emigrate to the US... if you win the immigration lottery.)
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My point for all this is that we *could* still be having increases in productivity. If we just eased up on all the arbitrary unfairness and burden we place on the people, The electronics revolution isn't quite over yet, the internet revolution is about half over, there's a ton of room for innovation in medical sciences, and the bio revolution is just getting started. (And the start of the AI revolution might be very cl
is more and more likely to be made of silicon and steel. Automation is rendering the productive capacity of individual human beings less and less relevant. With production efficiencies at historic highs and still increasing rapidly, we should ALL have a great standard of living and a great quality of life - lots of time for creative pursuits, and friends and family, without working our fingers to the bone. But NO - workweeks are getting longer, more people have multiple jobs, and average incomes, (except for the elites), are dropping. Why do you think that is?
Fuck the "headwinds" - the clear and present danger to a healthy, happy future for most of us is extreme-and-still-growing wealth concentration. We need to tackle the truly Herculean task of re-engineering our social institutions, our cultural and historical and religious biases, our mass propag.., er, media infrastructure, and our fundamental outlook on social hierarchies. All the pearls of wisdom from all the pundits in the world are just more circuses - distractions from the job of building sane and fair societies for ourselves and our children.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Because AI is not algorithms at all.
"Productivity" is a result of numerous things, and primarily related to Freedom.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding your analysis, but my understanding of "productivity", and how that relates to the large economy and to the American middle class specifically, has nothing to do with "Freedom" or any other such political categorization. In todays political climate, the use of the word Freedom usually shows up right before things like polemics and hyperbole.
My understanding of productivity, as how it relates to our economy, is better defined by Wikipedia.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Our grandparents' parents electric lights and telephone are now the internet and wireless and google and wikipedia -- nearly instant access to nearly the sum of human knowledge nearly anywhere.
There's an inflection in the productivity graph, yes, but it is opposite of what Gordon says, productivity will go up, not just in the USA but worldwide.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
So when does it become AI then? What is "AI" to you because clearly there's some semantic differences.
Did someone say cake?
"de-regulation?"
Economically significant regulatory rules are those that, among other things, "Have an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more or adversely affect in a material way the economy, a sector of the economy, productivity, competition, jobs, the environment, public health or safety, or State, local or tribal governments or communities..." (Executive Order 12866)
Clinton issued a total of 361 economically significant rules and Bush issued 358. As of the end of January 2016, Obama had 393 with another 47 on the drawing board (Obama's Midnight).
Obama has been issuing 55 economically significant regulations per year of his administration. Clinton's and Bush's record aren't much better. Over-regulation is a more likely culprit or reduced productivity.
On your other points, I can't recall how unions have contributed to productivity nor how greed necessarily decreases productivity.
It becomes AI when it can pick up a book about how to play Go and learn how to play Go. Even if it plays badly. Otherwise it is just clever programming.
I would disagree, at least in the case of Amazon. They've revolutionized Logistics and Distribution, especially in concert with the shipping partners like UPS, FedEx, and DHL.
Better logistics and distribution adds to productivity.
So Google's Deepmind, which learned all on it's own how to play an Atari?
Did someone say cake?
Drastic cuts, old wealth disappearing, new order emerging etc held something at bay in Europe.
America had its own internal frontier. As long as the frontier was moving west and more land came under the till the population growth kept it going. World war II and the baby boom helped it going farther.
Finally we have run out of frontiers both in Europe and America. But that is merely the space frontier, the time frontier is endless. The next generation, always larger than the previous in sheer numbers will provide the demand needed to create more jobs than lost. But the pace is furious and is acceleration. Society does not have the time to adjust or grow to create more demand.
The world simply does not have the energy and material needed to provide first world comfort to the third world. But efficiency gains in material and energy use, as well as labor use, can create the demand needed to keep all the world employed gainfully.
Improving the living conditions of the third world is how we can create jobs in the first world. We need to promote trade that will genuinely improve the lives of the people of the third world, not trade policies driven by tax dodgers, job outsources, and environment scofflaws.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
No, not the welfare recipients. American laws and tax structures favors people who have money, use people to their, and game the system.
Just a though experiment:
A person works to make $100; they can expect to end up with $70 in their paycheck.
If someone's rich relative gives them $100, they get $80.
What utter bullshit. The person doing nothing gets more, and they procreate, breeding more people who provide no benefit.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
The millennials at the company i work for seem to be, on average, hardworking and productive members of the team. The people who are a little older and have been with the company for five or ten years may still have a leg up on them, but that's because of experience which is obviously something that only comes with time.
Perhaps the hiring practices at your company need improvement? Or maybe you need to adapt more? What does "can't function without their cell phones" mean exactly anyways?
"the young men of the governing class, are habituated to lead a life of luxury and idleness both of body and mind; they do nothing, and are incapable of resisting either pleasure or pain."
- Plato, The Republic, 380 BC
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
happened in the US .... technology...
I have a friend in a former soviet bloc country who makes the exact complaints. Not only that, they are far more racist, particularly against the Chinese for all of the imports into their country and how he can't go into a store anymore without being surrounded by Pagaminta Kinijoje.
With Government entitlements and subsidies, who needs to be productive...
Is it a measurement of sex and sleep deprivation?
Will you run an engine lathe eight unfucking hours a day because the syndicate tells you the people
need what the lathe produces?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Google's Go program didn't learn to win at Go by programmers telling it how to do it, it learned by playing a lot of games and gradually improving. Same way people get good at Go.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
The rise of government regulations on private employers contributes to the decline in overall productivity.
I hear that complaint all the time in the small business circles. When pressed to cite one specific regulation, most owners can't mention a specific regulation that impact their business in any meaningful way.
Bigger houses, cars with anti-lock brakes and radios, ipods, cheaper clothes, cheaper food, fast (and cheap) internet, more of our income spent on more and better healthcare, and a *lot* more of our income spent on non-essential toys.
The average American is a lot better off now than 20 or 30 years ago; and it's hilarious when you look back as far as 1950, where 1/3 of your income went to food (it's 11% today, 15% 1990, over 20% in 1970, and 30% in 1950), 16% went per 1,000sqft of housing (it's 8%-9% today), 14% went to clothing (it's 4% today and was 6% in 1990), and so forth. Families of the 50s spent 60% of their income just to live in smaller houses (984sqft average new home) than families of today (2,300sqft average circa 2003); and they had worse healthcare-per-dollar while spending only 4% of their income on healthcare (it's 6% today). Today, we spend over 40% of our income on non-essential goods.
By the by, if we cut off China and brought manufacture back to America, we'd be unable to support our population (even with better welfare). Between 15 million and 40 million Americans would need to die off right away; and the remainder would spend more for food, clothing, and other essential goods. The poor would be hit the hardest, but many of them would die anyway. The increase in cost of goods would reduce the amount of money each consumer has, resulting in less ability to buy as many goods; this would eliminate some of the jobs producing goods, as well as shipping, logistics, marketing, and retail.
This is because Americans are currently buying those products, but will have to pay more for (and buy less of) those products if produced domestically. That means not as many jobs to make, market, and distribute; and it means the income from said jobs buys fewer goods. We'd essentially convert Americans off existing production (destroying jobs) onto new production (creating jobs) making goods which are more expensive than their existing equivalents (destroying buying power, hence how those earlier jobs got destroyed in the first place), resulting in less purchasing in total.
Technology is the source of wealth. Hard wealth, not money; money is not wealth.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Where did I say they needed to work harder and write better than previous generations? I said to work hard, not hardER.
I guess you can add reading comprehension to the list, so they actually understand the communications people send. Also the ability to let perceived outrage diminish as it's all too easy to take offense where none is meant. That's just a super valuable life skill all by itself.
Last word for me, I've said what was needed:
but the world accepts this now
And that... is why you fail.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think at one time a lot of people who were starting a business did in the back of their minds want to do some good. Some of this good translated into increased productivity for humanity. Today I think the balance has shifted dramatically; the focus is all on the benefit to the company and no one really cares about doing good any more. This has translated to companies that sell us crap that wastes our time rather than make us more productive because they only care about making what we will pay the most for. Any gains in productivity (I saw Amazon's logistics mentioned) now go to benefit the company internally. This has come to be perceived as normal because we all know a corporation is not obligated to help anyone except the shareholder's bank account.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Oh boo hoo.
"I can't do whetever I want with toxic chemicals because of regulations designed to prevent abuse and widespread environmental damage. Woe is me."
Eat the rich.
American Productivity Miracle... was brought you by...
Amphetamine Sulfate
Don't accept imitations!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
As I have said before, the burden of the desperation of these nations is being entirely being placed on the back of the American middle class, while the wealthy ride it to the bank. I'm pretty sure that doesn't sound fair to me unless everyone participates equally.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Can anyone spot the several logical fallacies in the above statements? Explain. This will count toward 20% of your grade.
Extra credit: Describe in a paragraph how unregulated markets tend to eventually become much less efficient ("productive").
You are welcome on my lawn.
It was powered by cheap energy: https://gailtheactuary.files.w...
thegodmovie.com - watch it
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.
The issue is that nothing radically new has been invented (like was in the late 19th and early 20th century). An analogy would be we are hitting mores wall and we have been just making things more efficient for the last 40-100 years.
I agree though that this country was in the right place at the right time, with the right laws and system, ect. There are a few other connections too, like for instance the UK giving the US pretty much all experimental research during WW2. It would be tantamount to the US giving all its technology secrets to china or india and seeing those economies benefit. On top of that, we also got most of germany's secrets and scientists.
I don't think anyone knows how actual anarchy would work out. It presumably existed at some point in the past, but it is hard to draw parallels from the past to the world of today.
I'd guess there would be wage disparity, but perhaps not. Coordination should make such things uniform, but we've seen where central governments don't always create uniform regulations or are able to enforce them. There is the possibility that removing central government could allow a heretofore unknown or suppressed method of human social behavior to actually do a better job of regulation. That's merely wild speculation on my part, but I doubt we know if it is wishful thinking or not.
The notion that wage disparity is the direct result of government activity and not the market is absurd as it flies in the face of reason.
The same line of reasoning could be applied to criminal justice. Perhaps if we got rid of the meddling government, we could allow a heretofore unknown or suppressed method of human social behavior to actually do a better job of promoting harmony between individuals in society. After all, look at failed states all over the world. The lack of central government brings with it both economic equality and civil tranquility.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
My understanding of "productivity", as used in the typical way about economics, etc, is productivity has gone up in the last few decades. As I understand it, productivity has gone up because of technical and scientific innovations. Because of technology the productivity of the average worker, and what can be produced, is much higher. Is that not correct?
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
The US economy surged simply because the New World had a very low population and a tremendous amount of natural resources. We no longer have a small population and we have exploited resources to the point that acquiring useful materials is much more difficult. Many of us have also learned that growth is its own kind of horror story. Look at the wastelands that were once the leaders of growth such as Detroit, NYC etc.. Flint Michigan is an example of what growth can do. Then consider that when we go back 150 years all manufacturing involved tremendous numbers of workers as did farming. Now we don't need workers in those fields and we need less every year. Technology is replacing human effort. That is exactly what technology is supposed to do. It is replacing human effort by elimination of employment. And the price and availability of labor is becoming less and less relevant. Instead of worrying about whether a worker gets paid one dollar an hour or ten dollars an hour the new game is to worry about whether your robots can produce better product, cheaper and quicker than the other nations robots. It is not like the handwriting is on the wall. It is more like the message has been printed on a baseball and shoved up your nose. Yet the state of denial in the US is such that the changes that must be made to accommodate this entirely new horizon are close to zero. In twenty years the percentage of the public that is employed will be less than 5%. Our laws, our government, our social customs and beliefs all must be altered almost beyond recognition to prevent chaos during this transition. It may well be that authoritarian regimes such as china will have an unbeatable edge as they can order large social changes at the snap of the fingers whereas nations that are more moderate simply can not adapt quickly enough to prevent collapse. Frankly capitalism will become almost unheard of in the near future. The simple fact is that the public will have to be well paid in order for businesses to survive. That means that sales taxes and business income taxes will be the only resource to support both the public and the government. Consider this as a serious example. Driverless cars simply will not get traffic tickets. Your police departments are financed by income from traffic tickets. Without traffic tickets, it may be impossible to have police departments that are effective. Driverless cars are just one change among a host of changes coming at us like a bullet. We need the velocity of adaptation to equal the velocity of change and we are failing miserably.
Those regulations you hate so much wouldn't be needed if the shitheel companies hadn't fucked over the environment in countless ways already.
Eat the rich.
You should have responded with:
I should buy a boat.
That snidely implies that one needs money to procure a boat to avoid drowning in a hypothetical "a rising tide".
It also superfluously drags in a cat meme, which is the only way Mankind can communicate while avoiding the scrutiny of the AIs. [*]
[*] you are theeneenk I make joke...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
There is no difference between republicans and democrats (they are just republicrats), theists and atheists (atheists just believe in the religion of science), humans and mice (97.5% of our genome is the same), etc. There are no differences between anything.
I'm surprised then. Because I hear stuff like that every day.
Let's take everyone's favorite ACA. I know a guy who owns a small business who has brittle bone disease (I forget the real name). He operates a garage where he works on cars. With the ACA, the plans he can now get as an small business owner due to the new regulations are too expensive for him. And with the tax on not having a plan, there's no way out. Admittedly, there's no way he'd go without a plan, but he has only one option. Pay more.
Actually though, he has two options. He also have the option to shut down his business and drop his income below the poverty line. Now he's still unable to afford insurance, but now that he's impoverished, he can get a grant for it from the government.
Yeah, the ACA is a huge insurance company grab, but it was only possible by government regulation. The government regulation also rewards lower productivity. I'm not saying that this person's case is not an edge case, but his case is special in that he is an owner-proprietor in a business where he used to be able to be independent. By all accounts, he was not rich, but basically as close to a free man as you get in this society. Now, the government is more than willing to help him, just as long as he is poor enough and dependent enough on it.
Unlike a lot of people of my mindset, I don't believe this is a plot by "big government" to take away our freedom. I just believe it is the result of people who think they're helping when they aren't. They're the political helicopter "parents" who want to constantly watch over everyone and make them "safer" and "more equal". And its hard to argue with someone who wants to make you more "equal" and "safer", but sometimes, being safe is the last thing we need, as either individuals or as a country. Sometimes you need to let someone have the ability to go out on their own and beat down the barriers themselves. That is how you build a country that is productive and able to be proud of its achievements.
Genes, unless they make you sick or something, are irrelevant.
Culture, however, may be a cause, if that culture does not value productivity.
Anyone, of any genetic disposition can have a culture with a good work ethic.
With the ACA, the plans he can now get as an small business owner due to the new regulations are too expensive for him. And with the tax on not having a plan, there's no way out. Admittedly, there's no way he'd go without a plan, but he has only one option. Pay more.
My small business employer kept changing HR providers until we got a good deal. I'm now getting dental, vision and heath for $180 per month. Prior to ACA, I used to pay $500 per month for comparable coverage.
It does not fly in the face of reason. Although perhaps it does fly in the face of conventional wisdom today which is why you think it is absurd.
Question: We have government today, and have had such for 227 years (starting at the Constitution). Have wages *ever* been equal? In that entire time?
So why do you believe that it is so impossible that the action of government is responsible for such?
I can't say what you personally believe, but a lot of people have this conception of less government creating things like monopolies and big business which we needed regulation to stop.
Bullshit. You know how railroads and steel companies and oil companies became so powerful? Government grants, government action, government regulations. Government lands and right of ways were handed out to railroads. Government mineral rights were handed out via government corruption to companies with no bidding (Teapot Dome scandal). Governments colluded in running the Indians off lands that got in the way of development (despite treaties signed to the contrary). Party political machines took payments to directly affect policy and people used to line up at the doors for political appointments.
Sure you point to my statement about a completely unknown force stabilizing wages and call that bunk, because on the face of it, it seems like an easy statement to make. But the point I am trying to make is that the conventional wisdom about more regulation == equal wages is that it has similarly never actually been seen. That assertion is just as vague and hopeful as any statement I could make about some mystery force that equalizes wages due to the market. We just assume that if the government is big enough and strong enough and led by the right person making the right laws, that wages will equalize and the market can never compete. That is just as untested an assertion as my admittedly vague statement.
It's going to be hard to assess your situation with few facts other than before and after price, so I'll only ask the following questions.
Did that $180 policy exist previous to the ACA?
Did that $180 policy cost less or more before the ACA?
It seems like your HR department buckled down and did a lot of work. However, do we know they couldn't have found a better policy before the ACA by your HR department being sufficiently motivated to find one that was cheaper in the past?
The point is, I doubt that it is impossible to find a policy today that is cheaper than what you used to pay. The question is whether you always had the choice to have a better plan via your employer, if they had done the necessary work to find the best deal. There are a lot of companies out there trying to find the best deal they can, but I've personally worked two jobs since ACA and all of them have either been more expensive, or had less coverage, or both.
I'm not necessarily saying I am against all provisions of the ACA such as the prohibition of restrictions due to pre-existing conditions, but those changes did add considerable liability to the insurers. I mean, if someone walks in the door with an existing ailment, they're going to be paying for treatment from Day 1. That may be a good thing, but it is not free. My experience is that for middle class people I know, it has been nothing but added expense.
Between the 60 hour work weeks and automation there's not a lot of work to go around in a country where your entire quality of life is based on your job.
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They're trying to position bots with machine learning as a replacement for company specific apps that take care of customer service issues. If it works out expect millions of customer service jobs to go away. Funny thing is it's mostly a problem for the developing world because those low end jobs have already moved over there.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
> By comparison, Gordon argues, today's technological advancements -- Uber, Facebook, Amazon.com -- will touch the productivity of the American economy lightly -- if at all.
Those are all commercial successes that are built on real innovations.
I must admit, life is not changing as dramatically as it was during the time of Bell, Edison, Wright Brothers, and Ford.
Salaries across the world are slowly trending towards a midpoint. This will suck for more developed countries and will boost lesser developed countries.
Yes, I've long said "free trade is the great equalizer." It's not that workers in developed countries get a pay cut. It's that their raises are not as large as those of workers in less-developed countries.
The rising tide really does lift all boats, and the trick is to not begrudge them their 8% raise when you're only getting a 2% raise. The alternative -- banishing the factors that drive growth -- means both parties would get a 0% raise.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Lack of regulations also reduce productivity. Let's say those barrels of potassium ferricyanide are leaking and the workers get sick or die, then production drops to a crawl. Or the towns people show up with torches and pitchforks because the river flowing through town is yellow. Freedom is LOST if the towns people are told to go home because the company's profits are more important than their children's health. When all effort is focused solely on making money that society is sick.
Government has succeeded in destroying so much of what was special about America. We used to often here "it's a free country" and people really meant it. We used to believe that the world was open to any who wished to apply themselves and they could expect equal treatment from a government designed to protect their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - a government whose sole function was to protect the freedom of the people, not to rule over us.
Yeah it wasn't perfect. Yeah it didn't cover some people well if at all for a long time. But it was based on something radically different than almost any government before. And that difference made a huge difference in the economic realm as well when freedom extended as free trade - voluntary marketplace interactions only.
Bit by bit the people have forgotten freedom. Bit by bit those with a very different vision whether the State rules the people and a person is subservient to the state has taken over. And it has hurt economically as well. There are over 400,000 regulations on the books. The amount of red tape on business is ridiculous. The amount of limiting of choice of what can be offered for sale or purchased is extreme and growing. The State eats 40% of wealth and more as it has us $19 trillion in debt and at least $100 trillion more in hock for unfunded liabilities.
So don't pretend that the rich did it or some unknown malady has befallen us. Look to government and to the people forgetting freedom and what this country is supposed to be about.
Never use your money to save a company you don't have an investment stake in. Companies that are so myopic as to have those sorts of issues will NEVER praise you for saving the day; the fact is they will most likely fire you for profiteering. Never, ever, work for a place like this. No good will ever come of it. My director says the same thing. I use my personal accounts for my convenience - that is all. on the rare occasion I use a personal account to get something, I am asked why - and I tell him I wanted it NEXT DAY. If the system ever goes down due to Company planning it is the Companies problem. Find a boss that backs you on that and get behind them - they will likely look out for you in many other ways.
This sounds Oddly Familiar...
"America is past it's prime and over, nothing better is coming"
http://patentlyo.com/patent/20...
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
There is the possibility that removing central government could allow a heretofore unknown or suppressed method of human social behavior to actually do a better job of regulation
Actually, it is already here.
What the cheerleaders for government omit is that at any given moment, most of the world operates under anarchy.
Right now, I do not have some government agent dictating what I should and should not do, and the world doesn't fall apart. People are doing illegal things en mass simply because government lacks the capability to enforce on that broad of a scale. It's anarchy out there.
People often confuse government with administration, and while often related, they are not the same thing. We do need administrators to ease the complexities of our social structure, but this absurd notion of government holding the line against the demon horde in our heads is overwrought.
There is anarchy, it's called Africa. So far it doesn't look too promising.
The notion that wage disparity is the direct result of government activity and not the market is absurd as it flies in the face of reason.
And who imposed wage freezes in WW2 forcing employers to offer non-monetary compensation, like health insurance? Yes, the government meddles heavily with such things, along with the federal reserve.
It's a perfect time for being wasted.
A perfect time to watch the stars.
- Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"
Question: We have government today, and have had such for 227 years (starting at the Constitution). Have wages *ever* been equal? In that entire time?
It has varied over time. Wages have been closer to equal during eras where the government was more interventionist and they have been less equal when the policy is hands off.
You must have a funny definition of intervention. We have had 3 decades of backing away from consumer laws, employment laws, and banking laws, avoiding raising minimum wage (until recently), increasingly regressive taxation complete with trickle down economics. Predictably, wage disparity has been growing and the general welfare has gone down even while the wealthiest become wealthier than ever before.
In the times you speak of, we had a strongly progressive tax, strong public works, and implemented the minimum wage. One difference was that nearly half of the current workforce was excluded by social norm, driving wages up. Perhaps we should replace that benefit without becoming discriminatory again by declaring 20 hours to be the new full time (actually, we should start at 35 to avoid shocking the system).
As for your minimum wage argument, you claim that if only we would allow employers to pay $5 an hour rather than $9/hr the minimum wage earner would be better off AND have more time with his family? You realize that makes no sense, right?
How actual anarchy works out: Somalia
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Came close 1947 to 1952. Of course, we were the ONLY manufacturing system still intact, we had been overproducing for 10 years previous to that, and we had 95% income taxes on the top 1% to make that after-tax income equal (in that a millionaire and a $5,000 a year ditch digger had the same after tax takehome)
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I think Robert Gordon's conclusions are so clearly self evident5 that it astonishes me anyone would even disagree at all... I mean.. just *what* is going to pick up the slack for the introduction of electrical devices, lights, refrigeration, transportation, the assembly line, and so on.. These things can only ever be invented *once*. It's not too different from the rock and roll boom of the 50s to 70s. That's not about to happen again, ever, either...
Never again. If you want those heady days to return I suggest you take a little trip with John Titor...
We simply don't know what technological advancements the future will bring. Development may have slowed but that is not what gives most cause for concern. Our biggest problem is that the worlds economy depends on growth, while there is a limit to how much this planet can handle in terms of resource consumption and pollution. We either have to find a way to decouple economic growth from increases in consumption or rebuild the international economy so that it can cope with negative growth. Further adding to the problem is that it is no longer possible to keep the poor 3rd-world masses in the dark wrt how miserable their situation is. The increased migration we now see towards Europe and North America is just the beginning of a stampede. It is just a fraction of the migrants that are refugees from wars. The vast majority are economic migrants. More fair distribution of resources globally is the only non-violent solution to this problem.
As for the US economy the dominating problem is that resources and wealth is accumulating out of circulation. It doesn't help business-owners that they are able to sell a handful items to the super-rich when the mass of consumers they rely on for their income no longer can afford the products. The US economy would have been much better off if the income-distribution among the populous had been as it was 20, 30 or 40 years ago. The de-regulation of finance and industry that has has happened since the 1980's can lead to total disaster if it is not reversed in time. Competitive markets are great, but un-regulated capitalism tend to converge towards private monopolies. Startups and small businesses need some basic forms of protection in order to maintain a competitive market.
That's not quite true. AlphaGo is a combination of classical tree-based search (actually stochastic search because the tree is too big to traverse deterministically) for selecting the best moves, and deep-learning for deriving the cost function.
Not exactly. The reward function was not learned (score function if you prefer), as far as I can understand from the paper here. This seems logical since otherwise there would be no way to tell the Deep-Learning CN whether a high score or low score was desirable.
"what makes the US labor force one of the world's most productive. is permanently in the country's rearview mirror."
Bullshit might get you at the top, but it won't keep you there. And here's the next fortune teller that can explain exactly what went wrong.....for just $3.99
Question: We have government today, and have had such for 227 years (starting at the Constitution). Have wages *ever* been equal? In that entire time?
So why do you believe that it is so impossible that the action of government is responsible for such?
Question: We have government today, and have had such for 227 years. Has Cthulhu *ever* awoken? In that entire time?
So why do you believe that it is so impossible that the action of government is responsible for keeping Cthulhu asleep?
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Seems since all the manufacturing and IT and oh whatever else can be shipped to a foreign countries has been done so (and now with the Pacific Trade Partnership Agreement we are shipping off our farming, dairy, etc.) what is there to measure? Seriously, I would like to know?
In the times you speak of, we had a strongly progressive tax, strong public works, and implemented the minimum wage. One difference was that nearly half of the current workforce was excluded by social norm, driving wages up.
You're both right. That's my original point. We have no real basis for making statements because we're always cherry picking what was going on when those things happened.
In the late 40s to the 50s, we had both an excellent economic situation, and we had high regulation. Which caused which? Or where they only loosely dependent variables?
Ultimately, we were the beneficiaries of a situation where the rest of the world eliminated itself as competition for the US. That's a pretty strong position, but it was going to be a temporary position as the world rebuilt. In 1950, when we could afford to pay people large sums for unskilled labor, and when the millionaires made enough so that they didn't care about 95% income tax, it could certainly be possible for all things to be in harmony. Today? Maybe... maybe not.
My point is not that regulation doesn't work, or that the market is the only right answer. It was merely my assertion that we have no idea how anarchy would work because we've never actually seen it or even really modeled it realistically. We only think we know what would arise in such a system based on certain assumptions. And many times we make assertions based on what we thought it would look like by looking at the past, but even the past does not necessarily work the way we think it did because we have an incomplete or simplistic picture.
In many objective senses, we're better off than any 1950's worker was, but in other ways we're objectively definitely not better off. In some sense, I don't think we have the same idea of "success" or even happiness. Some people accept discomfort for themselves and others if it gives the hope of advancement. They do not believe that a completely equitable society is in humanity's best interests if other things must fall to the wayside. Some people care less for ambitions in that regard and more for a more "equitable" society, even if we must force it somewhat. If you look at what people believe, you start seeing why matters like this are viewed in completely different ways.
Amazing how the only alternative to a huge bloated government is the complete lack of government. I am glad to see that people can be so shallow and mentally deranged.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
More government has lead to the complete opposite of equal wages and reduced wage disparity. The US is not the only game in town by any stretch of the imagination. Look around the world and investigate. Every time the Government is given the ability to make things "fair" to the populace you have tyrants and peasants. Not once, not twice, but every single time.
China, Russia, most of Eastern Europe, any country in the Middle East, any country in Africa, Most of South America, they all have "The Government will save you" Governments and all of them have two classes of citizen. Those in Government who are wealthy and those not in government who are the peasant workers.
Where we have the most fair systems are where the Free Market is allowed to work and the Government does it's best to stop corruption and predatory monopolization.
Most people here claim that the only options are Anarchy or Massive Government, which is absurd. There is a middle ground where the Government does as Adam Smith described in his books and acts as a police and law enforcement agency to keep the field clear of crap. Friedman repeated and modernized the message, but most people in the US have little knowledge of him.
*sigh* Not venting at you, but at the general lack of intelligent discourse on the subject.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
If it is true that wage disparity is due to government activity and not the market, then it is necessarily true that a pure free market with no government activity must have no wage disparity.
Whether or not some "small-but-not-nonexistent government" approach would be a viable or preferable alternative is orthogonal to this fact, which is why I didn't bring it up.
More specifically, I wasn't advocating for or against government activity or a market economy -- I was applying deductive reasoning to an argument made by OP to demonstrate how it leads to absurdity, and is therefore false. I'm not setting up a false dichotomy here, although OP likely did.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Economics at the Country scale is incredibly complex. How has the Government impacted wages? Would be a massive discussion but here are a few basics. You can read Milton Friedman as I have for a second opinion, and I will tell you that Nobel prize winning mind is much better at this game. I'd also recommend you read Adam Smith to see what the early expectation of Government was.
1. Illegal immigration: The lack of enforcement has driven down wages for the bottom earners in the economy. The US has approximately 11.5 million illegal immigrants in the US. This is over 5% of the working population, who can be forced to work for less than minimum wage but if the employer is generous they will get minimum wage.
2. Mandated Monopolies: The Government has increased monopolization by extending Patents to ideas, increased duration for copyrights, increased duration for trademark, and allowing patents to be extended by non patent holders. E.G. my widget is an extension to your app, and my patent prevents competition just like yours does.
3. Limited Access: Fees for numerous markets, highly impacting medical/pharmaceutical/manufacturing, prevent entry into the market. This comes in the form Certification, Regulation, and up front Licensing. Many "rules" require you to have a specialized set of degrees and certifications to operate in a given market.
Pre-1980/1990 The consumer based market could shift to better players when they are allowed to exist. Not always, but the Governments role is not to prevent entry but stop abuses. We often hear about how snake oil salesmen had a free for all in the US, until the Government saved us all. The market had corrections for those people, sometimes rather violent to intimidate people into choosing a safer career.
The Government can not level the field without owning all of the power. That is the game to avoid because tyrants and peasants is the historical outcome of those scenarios EVERY SINGLE time. Limited Government works, and has historical backing.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Let's not continually expand the scope of this interaction. I was talking about the validity of a logical argument, not economics. I specifically said in my last post that I'm not evaluating the merits of any economic philosophy or policy, that I'm restricting my comment specifically to the domain of rational logic, and not interested in economics. I repeat, I have no interest in getting into a subjective discussion about a complex issue, but in the interest of civility I'll at least offer a brief response to your enumerated points.
Regarding illegal immigration, it's not clear that an absence of government (and the resulting uncontrolled flow of persons) would remedy wage discrepancy. If anything, based on your reasoning here, it would only worsen it.
Regarding mandated monopolies, it's not clear that an absence of government would prevent the natural formation of monopolies through consolidation, collusion, or other anti-competitive practices. Granted, it would eliminate the potential for government-mandated monopolies, but those are only one variety of many.
Regarding limited access, it's not clear than an absence of government would result in equal access for all. Government regulation is indeed a barrier to entry into markets, but it is not the only one, and it's not clear how getting rid of one barrier would eliminate all others.
That being said, you bring up a number of good points, many of which I agree with (some of which I don't). However, they don't really demonstrate that a free market without any government activity would necessarily be free from wage disparity, which is what you'd need in order to falsify my claim.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
I stated sarcastically that more Government was not the answer, and you jumped to "Anarchy fails". I then stated there is a middle ground and that shallow people refuse to see it.
How the hell can you argue that ~Wage disparity is not caused by Government~ or it's opposite, without discussing economics? I pointed you at sources, namely a Nobel price winning economist who has proven everything I stated. He won the Nobel prize for doing that work. DO THE WORK, READ THE MATERIAL! Nothing else to be said as your statements are completely irrational, and you are more than happy to defend your delusions. Grats on being impaired.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Ultimately, we were the beneficiaries of a situation where the rest of the world eliminated itself as competition for the US. That's a pretty strong position, but it was going to be a temporary position as the world rebuilt. In 1950, when we could afford to pay people large sums for unskilled labor, and when the millionaires made enough so that they didn't care about 95% income tax, it could certainly be possible for all things to be in harmony. Today? Maybe... maybe not.
Today, the millionaires make more money than ever and our ABILITY to pay unskilled labor is un-diminished.