Sal Paradise wrote:
I think you don't understand productivity - productivity isn't an increase in revenue its a way of doing the same with less resource or doing more with the same resource. This country has one of the lowest productivity rates in the EU perhaps if we increased our productivity the brakes would be released - just a thought?
Why is productivity so low? The main reason is due to excessive debt and BoE/government desperation to keep interest rates low. This keeps zombie companies alive which tie up resources that in theory could be more efficiently used if they went bust and new ones took their place. I think I read recently that there are something like 96,000 companies which could not cope with even a 0.25 per cent in interest rates on their loans.
Then there are the capitalists beloved zero hours contracts and part time working. Lots of employment in terms of jobs but no real efficiency.
Other factors include the fact that to do the simplest of tasks that 10 years ago would take say one minute (e.g. Speaking to a company / HMRC / etc to resolve a simple matter) will now take hours, days or weeks due to email, lack of customer care (but moronic 'customer services'), lack of common sense and inability to do anything / be allowed to do anything other than read from a script, automated telephone systems with wasteful recorded messages, etc. In short US business school crap. It may work in McDonalds but it doesn't work in lots of fields.
Times are about too change though in my view. The UK economy looks set for a huge shock. The building industry has slowed (traditionally the sign of a recession coming), the dominant services sector is slowing, inflation exceeds wages growth, we have the 4th highest level of household debt in the world, the property market is slowing, the retail sector is slowing and showing the potential for major collapses, US interest rates are going up and expected to be up to 3 per cent within a year which means the pound continues to fall against the dollar and will create further inflation, Brexit will put pressure on further, BoE will soon need to raise rates to stop the pound falling but that will put thousands of zombie businesses under with huge job losses, households will struggle to pay their huge debts and the ramifications of that are clear. I predict that this next year or at a push 18 months we'll think that we never had it do good as during the 7 years of austerity.
When all those poor people lose their jobs productivity will inevitably rise but will it really help people?