US productivity growth is negative and economists aren’t sure why

qz.com

9 pointspaulpauper5 comments

Ans #1: We outsourced the parts of the economy with the highest potential for productivity gains (manufacturring) and kept the ones most subject to Baumol's cost disease (services, computers, and finance bullshit)

Ans #2: Rentier capitalism saddles productive parts of the economy with onerous rents. Notable the portion of labor costs that devoted to workers housing rents has been increasing.

> Ans #2: Rentier capitalism saddles productive parts of the economy with onerous rents.

Do you mean housing?

Rents everywhere you look, not only in housing. If you want to be a car mechanic, prepare to pay rent on your diagnostic computers. Want to be a farmer? Your tractor won't work without yearly service visit. If it breaks in the middle of the field? Yeah, you can't fix it yourself anymore, need to pay. You want to program microcontrollers with something more than arduino ide? Yeah, yearly subscription for your IDE, or per-compilation fee. I could probably find such examples in many more fields.

(2017)

Current stats: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/prod2.pdf

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