A US productivity boom may explain how inflation slowed amid a strong economy | Hacker News Reader

A US productivity boom may explain how inflation slowed amid a strong economy

cnn.com

13 pointsrntn11 comments

Remote + pandemic-driven displacements forced a lot of markets out of equilibrium. A large cohort retired(not just because they got sick, but because the markets started moving very fast) and another cohort traded up to higher wage and skill positions. The shortage in fast food workers was a strong signal of productivity going up.

Productivity isn't a direct factor of technologies being available, it's also defined by what pressures businesses are facing. If they see cheap labor and their competitors see cheap labor, they aren't going to make a big capital investment in tech without either the "disruptive 10x" advantage or an external force like regulation or shifting consumer tastes. So we all got a dose of doing things differently and the market's catching up with that now.

The Black Death has also been credited by historians with putting Europe on the path to modernity, since it made labor prices rise.

> One popular theory is that the proliferation of generative artificial intelligence may have made operations for certain tasks more efficient.

I would love to know with data how many companies used AI or Gen AI in 2023 and their productivity improved thanks to that (with facts, not gut feelings). It looks to me that this article is a marketing post for Copilot and similar.

Wait, is inflation slowing or getting stronger? Because last week’s CPI numbers were expected to be 2.9%, but came out at 3.1%

Either way, when money becomes cheap, the biggest inflation id always in real assets. Last 3 years of real asset inflation has already priced out millions from owning a house m

Nobody mentioned remote work? To be that’s the biggest change by far

The bosses don’t want remote work to be seen as good it doesn’t fit their return to the office narrative.

It's a countervailing force. You can tell because when people are challenged to say explicitly how they think it's made them more productive they say stuff like, "I can get the laundry done in the afternoon" or "it's easier to pick my kids up from daycare early" or "I can sleep in because I don't have a commute."

Here is one: i don't have to commute for 2 hours each day and out of those hours I spend 1.5 hours working. So i work 5*1.5 morr hours in any given week.

That's great! I'm sure there exist thousands of high-conscientiousness hard-workers just like you who are taking the time they spent commuting and pouring it back into work. Forums like Hacker News are filled with this kind of person, a defining characteristic of whom is an inability to recognize just how atypical they are in this respect (amongst other ways).

Even if you do zero extra work you will be more rested. Additionaly being able to eat healthier at home is going to pay dividends.

Ok so perhaps it’s different things to different people then. I find that I’m more productive with work tasks - my commute time is work time now, and no walk up distractions means I’m getting through work quicker.

This stinks of wishful thinking... but I hope it's true.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com