Productivity

"Workers in the US are still more productive per person than any others in the world, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) says in a report. In 2006 each US worker produced $63,885 (=A331,651) of wealth, well ahead of second placed Ireland at $55,986. "

Hmm, I'm guessing that the report these figures came from is this one

Specifically chapter 18 on productivity.

To rationalise my personal biases my theory is that the headline figure is distorted because the USA buys DVD players and other plastic junk mostly on credit. Trade deficit since the

Is this wealth produced or just borrowed?

The Ford motor company has been insolvent on paper for years. It's an example of the old saying about owing the bank ten thousand and you have a problem, owe the bank ten billion and the bank has a problem.

The counterarguement to that is that the holders of the USA's massive debt will get paid back a small fraction of it's current value when inflation due to the Fed printing money outpaces the return on treasury bonds and other low risk investments, and the people with money in hedge funds and morgague back securitys really get it in the shorts. If you borrow wealth and never give it back is that generating wealth?

Perhaps this would be a good moment to point to the USA prodding the IMF for a long time to do somthing about the Chineese pegging the Yuan right up until the IMF said that actually the dollar is overvalued at which point the USA did a total about face and started claiming that it's not possible to accurately assess it.

When the dollar looses more value the productivity of US workers may go up as US exports are more competative but I don't think they will enjoy having their supply of ridiculously cheap DVD players cut off.

Bob

It's GDP divided by the number of people in the working population.

Where did the Brits place?

Ford's insolvency has to do with how Ford is managed, not general US policy.

...Jim Thompson

A couple of problems with this sort of statistic. First:

"The ILO productivity figure is found by dividing a country's total output in a year by the number of people employed."

Unfortunately, there's no way of telling what the cost of that output should be and whether or not it has properly been accounted for. They don't go around quoting 'Net' National Product but 'Gross' National Product. Take Boeing for example. They sell a $100 million airplane and the GNP is credited with $100 million. Its not evident from that number that a good part of the value of the product is foreign made and should properly be credited to its country of origin.

Another problem:

They are measuring output in dollars. Certainly a $10 American made widget will appear to be 10x the 'output' of a $1 Chinese widget, even though the widgets may be functionally identical.

It's impressive the progress Ireland has made: #2 in the world!

John,

Irish, of course.

They were on vacation.

.=2E. or the average american worker who I would put put up against the workers of any nation. When it comes to digging the heels in and pulling the load, a doubt the american work force can be beat.

I didn't know we produce much of anything anymore. The report sounds like it's based on a bunch of management level bs which means it is totally unreliable.

If you order 1000 items from a China factory for $5 each and sell them for $10, and it takes you two hours, you've just made $2,500 per hour. That figures into the "productivity". The Chinese workers, who work diligently for 1,000 hours to make the items, are only producing $5/hour of goods, so their "productivity" is very poor.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Right, no one is going to convince me that American workers are productive, this country is a pathetic, morally and ethically bankrupt cesspool of bullsh_t, statistically speaking of course.

Fred, Why don't you move to France where you'll fit right in ?:-)

...Jim Thompson

I think I will, I would enjoy living in France, at least there's some semblance of culture there.

Be careful! A lot of that 'culture' is resistant to all known antibiotics. On second thought: Enjoy yourself, while you last.

French medical science rivals the world, to this day they continue to make great breakthroughs. Louis Pasteur is the Isaac Newton of modern microbiology, a great genius.

What has he done lately, other than continue to decompose? He's been dead over 100 years:

Yeah, and the Arab world used to be the cradle of civilization.

Things change.

I'm not so sure. They elected a new President and like American's again.

Maybe Venezuela.

It still was. That didn't change

You really need to try and follow the thread.

Start again at the part that reads "French medical...

FB uses Louis Pasteur as proof of France's current greatness in medical science.

That is just like using the Arab world's centuries old expertise in mathematics as proof of its current scholarly greatness.

Then why is the cancer mortality (for detected and treated cases) higher in Europe than in the US? Example:

Scroll to "Health spending and cancer survival rates".

Though it will be, when it reaches the UK.