A reminder to myself, to work on a project I've been "working on"...
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| Source: BLS via Krugman |
Why now? Why immediately after my review of Robert J. Gordon's remarks? Because Krugman said this:
This shows what everyone was supposed to know: we had an awesome performance in the generation following the war (despite very high tax rates on the rich and a very strong union movement); we had a long period of poor productivity performance that spanned the Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush I administrations; we then had a revival during the Clinton administration, but even so not up to postwar standards. By the way, I don’t give Clinton credit for that revival; it was about learning to use technology.
It was about learning to use technology. Pretty much what Robert Gordon said.
Mini ha-ha:
In a follow-up (More About the Reagan Non-miracle) Krugman writes:
Oh, by the way, GW Bush presided over pretty good productivity growth but terrible job growth, even before the recession. So the overall result was poor.
That next-to-last vertical bar there on the graph, PK just couldn't let it be.
2 comments:
And why should he leave it alone? Screw productivity. What we need is job growth, and Bush gave us 0.00000, to a reasonable first approximation.
Technology is deflationary.
Productivity is deflationary.
These things are neither good nor bad. They simply are. But context matters a lot. When technology advances and productivity improves, but there is no job growth, you get the last decade, and that leads us to where we are now - the sewer.
Cheers - or should I say WASF!
JzB
Hey, Jazz. I just thought it was funny, that's all. Kinda like you can't *ever* let it be if I have anything other than praise for Krugman. That's funny, too.
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