Rich countries will struggle to achieve the rises in living standards their citizens think are normal unless they sustain faster increases in economic efficiency, according to a report on Tuesday from the Conference Board, the international business organisation. The board's international comparison of labour productivity in 2007 shows sluggish growth in advanced economies compared with rapid improvements in many emerging markets.Although the EU scored slightly higher on growth in output per hour worked than the US for the second year in a row, the important difference says Bart van Ark, executive director of the Conference Board, is between increasingly sustainable productivity growth in countries such as China and much lower growth rates in advanced economies. "With a projected slowdown in the growth of the labour force relative to the total population, advanced countries will need to raise productivity growth rates to well beyond 2 per cent a year over the next two decades to maintain current per-capita income growth rates," the report says.
Although the EU scored slightly higher on growth in output per hour worked than the US for the second year in a row, the important difference says Bart van Ark, executive director of the Conference Board, is between increasingly sustainable productivity growth in countries such as China and much lower growth rates in advanced economies.
"With a projected slowdown in the growth of the labour force relative to the total population, advanced countries will need to raise productivity growth rates to well beyond 2 per cent a year over the next two decades to maintain current per-capita income growth rates," the report says.
the important difference says Bart van Ark, executive director of the Conference Board, is between increasingly sustainable productivity growth in countries such as China and much lower growth rates in advanced economies.
Words fail. Sustained might vaguely make sense. But "sustainable"??? In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Rich countries will struggle to achieve the rises in living standards their citizens think are normal unless they sustain faster increases in economic efficiency,
Hold on. What rises in living standards ? as the rich increasingly capture more and more of the wealth, even in growing economies as the West have been for much of the last decade, median wage growth has been stagnant compared to the cost of living.
Economic efficiency is how the rich actually capture more of the wealth, by making everybody else's work less rewarded or secure. So economic efficiency and citizen's rising living standards are actually forces opposed to each other, not co-dependent.
so bugger efficiency, let's all put a spanner in the works and give a mechanic a job. keep to the Fen Causeway
And they work faster. Amazing! In the end, might makes right. Nothing has changed since the caveman.
