WHAT'S "PRODUCTIVITY" GOT TO DO WITH IT?

With Apologies for fair use to Tina Turner.

    Newspapers have gone goofy, I think.  Reporters write as though they are truly puzzled because they attribute increased profits to gains in "productivity," yet there are increasingly fewer jobs.  It seems they just cannot figure this out.  See, e.g., Nelson Schwartz, "Recovery in U.S. Lifting Profits, Not Adding Jobs / Wall Street is Buoyant / A Gulf is Widening as Federal Budget Cuts Take Effect" p. A1, col. 6 (New York Times Nat'l ed., Monday, March 4, 2013).  It would help to understand, I submit, not to think in terms of "productivity" at all. 

    At least newspapers report the phenomenon of higher profits and fewer workers.  However, productivity in the sense of workers producing more things in less time while working the same number of hours, does not explain it.  "Productivity" has nothing to do with it.

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