Why productivity is down

[LiberalEsto]

People don't feel productive when the money they are making for their company goes only to the rich CEOs and stockholders.


Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson whines in today's column that productivity is down. Samuelson is a right-wing ass. Productivity is down because the ruling rich have stomped so hard on American workers that people have become utterly demoralized. The middle class is being destroyed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...


It is no wonder to me that American workers no longer are willing to be driven to work 60 and 70 hour weeks when there is nothing in it for them.

People don't feel productive when they don't get raises, or only receive pitifully small ones that don't keep up with inflation.

People don't feel productive when they are exhausted trying to work three minimum-wage jobs just to keep a roof over their heads and feed their families.

People don't feel productive when they know their company's executives can rip off their hard-earned pension money and there is absolutely nothing the workers can do about it.

People don't feel productive when they know their jobs could be shipped overseas at a moment's notice.

People don't feel productive when they can be laid off and replaced with lower-paid foreign workers, leaving them with no decent-paying job opportunities for their skills.

People don't feel productive when houses are so expensive that there is no way they can even dream about saving to buy one.

People don't feel productive when the cost of everything goes up and they keep falling farther and farther behind economically.

People don't feel productive when college is so expensive that they can't afford to send their kids there.

You can only push people so far before they reach their limits. I think the Misadministration's policies favoring the ultra-rich and the corporations have just about pushed America's workers as far as they can take.

[hippiechick]

1. Spot on!

:mad: As I sit here trying to do my '06 taxes ... :mad:

[Mikey929]

2. Internet

I would blame the Internet too, like DU! :)

Too many darned ways to occupy yourself at work in non-work ways. I've done some email and Internet searches on non-productive employees and found a ton of wasted time playing on the Internet. Shopping, personal emails, etc. I just had to fire someone because she spent most of her day exchanging emails with friends while on company time.

[The2ndWheel]

3. Tell that to the kid who made our shoes

for a couple dimes a day over in SE Asia. Now that's productive.

But there is a reason we get less and less the more we put in. It's because everything can't endlessly grow. Everyone can't have all of everything.

"You can only push people so far before they reach their limits."

You're right, we still do live in a world of limits. It's the same with our entire way of life.

[TahitiNut]

5. Haven't you noticed the HUGE price reductions from off-shoring athletic shoe jobs?

No, neither have I. :shrug:


I remember when a pair of sneakers (e.g. Keds, PF Flyers) was half the price (or less) of "Sunday shoes."
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. (sigh)

[TahitiNut]

4. Naww... it's all them damned smokers.

:crazy: :dunce:


:hide:

[fasttense]

6. The productivity numbers are bogus like all the economic numbers

rigged and published by the bush administration. When US corporations ship their jobs out of the country, they don't report foreign labor costs. Low and behold, the US productivity numbers magically rise. They must have slowed the number of jobs going out of the US. I'm sure it is a temporary holiday measure.

[conscious evolution]

7. As long as they pretend

like they are paying me I'll pretend like I am working.

Where did I hear that before?

[LiberalEsto]

8. It was a Soviet Union joke

as far as I recall

[conscious evolution]

9. Only it was not a joke

And I am hearing and seeing the same thing here.
Things that make you do hhhmmm.