There are a couple reasons I don't feel the stagnation numbers give the full story:
1) Technology has made people better off in tangible ways. Most people have access to computers and the cost of entertainment and has decreased considerably.
2) Consumption on non-necessary goods has continued to rise in the last thirty years, and is about 50% of consumption (http://www.bls.gov/opub/uscs/2002-03.pdf).
3) The idea that labor should get the lion's share of the benefit of technology is somewhat ridiculous. Oracle doesn't make ERP systems for free. So yes, accountants are able to get a lot more done today than they were twenty years ago. But any given company is also spending millions on software and consultants. And they should be saving some money to have the incentive to implement this technology.
4) We are hitting a period where employers have the ability to demand total efficiency from it's workers. The expansion of on-demand consultants and freelancers and temps and an unemployment system that allows employees to go on furloughs without too huge a hit to their livelihood all sorta played into creating this new theory of zero-margin employment.
We can say it's bad because it's hurt tons of people. But employees fought as much for the ability to freelance and remove themselves from the cogs of the companies as companies conspired to look at their bottom line.
We gladly look at Europe and say that their stagnation is okay because they have social nets in place. And I'd buy that maybe it'd be nice to have stronger social nets. But we obviously have a tolerance for stagnation. So I think there's something a bit deeper in what we think is wrong with America.
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Date: 17/3/11 05:28 (UTC)1) Technology has made people better off in tangible ways. Most people have access to computers and the cost of entertainment and has decreased considerably.
2) Consumption on non-necessary goods has continued to rise in the last thirty years, and is about 50% of consumption (http://www.bls.gov/opub/uscs/2002-03.pdf).
3) The idea that labor should get the lion's share of the benefit of technology is somewhat ridiculous. Oracle doesn't make ERP systems for free. So yes, accountants are able to get a lot more done today than they were twenty years ago. But any given company is also spending millions on software and consultants. And they should be saving some money to have the incentive to implement this technology.
4) We are hitting a period where employers have the ability to demand total efficiency from it's workers. The expansion of on-demand consultants and freelancers and temps and an unemployment system that allows employees to go on furloughs without too huge a hit to their livelihood all sorta played into creating this new theory of zero-margin employment.
We can say it's bad because it's hurt tons of people. But employees fought as much for the ability to freelance and remove themselves from the cogs of the companies as companies conspired to look at their bottom line.
We gladly look at Europe and say that their stagnation is okay because they have social nets in place. And I'd buy that maybe it'd be nice to have stronger social nets. But we obviously have a tolerance for stagnation. So I think there's something a bit deeper in what we think is wrong with America.