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Pastimes : All Clowns Must Be Destroyed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pater tenebrarum who wrote (24813)	4/11/2000 2:37:00 PM
From: Cynic 2005	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42523

They are taking this as a sell signal for tech? -ng- ----------- biz.yahoo.com Tuesday April 11, 2:33 pm Eastern Time Greenspan sees tech fueling "vibrant" U.S. economy By Barbara Hagenbaugh WASHINGTON, April 11 (Reuters) - Rapid advances in the U.S. technology sector are fueling a ``vibrant' U.S. economy marked by higher productivity, rising incomes and an expanding pool of jobs, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Tuesday. In a speech, the U.S. central banker painted a positive picture of the benefits of technological innovation for the economy and did not return to his warnings of how stock gains driven by productivity could help to overheat the economy. ``The recent period of technological innovation has created a vibrant economy in which opportunities for new jobs and businesses have blossomed,' Greenspan said in a speech to the Labor Department's National Skills Summit. ``We are experiencing an extraordinary period of economic innovation and have witnessed its dynamic effects on productivity, real income and job creation,' he said. Greenspan said, however, that the European and Japanese economies were not enjoying the same high level of growth as the United States, due in part to costly and inflexible labor markets abroad. U.S. employers can fire their employees at a lower cost than companies in Europe and Japan, Greenspan said. U.S. firms therefore take on less risk when hiring workers. ``Because the high rates of return offered by the newer technologies are largely the result of a reduction in labor costs per unit of output, the rates of return on investment in the same new technologies are correspondingly less there than in the United States,' he said. ``Because our costs of dismissing workers are lower, the potential costs of hiring and the risks associated with expanding employment are less,' Greenspan said. ``The seeming result of significantly higher job dismissals has been, counterintuitively, a dramatic decline in the U.S. unemployment rate in recent years.' The U.S. unemployment rate has hovered at low levels for the past two years, at times dipping to the lowest level in a generation. The government reported on Friday that the U.S. unemployment rate was 4.1 percent in March. But despite the profound effect of technology on U.S. job creation, it also has had a negative effect for U.S. workers, Greenspan said, noting that the rapid change in technology has ignited fear for employees who worry they will not be able to keep up and will someday lose their jobs. Greenspan cited a recent study that showed U.S. workers were more fearful about losing their jobs than in 1991, when recession was gripping many parts of the nation. Workers were therefore putting pressure on U.S. education and training systems to teach them to stay abreast of new technologies. ``The rapidity of innovation and the unpredictability of the directions it may take imply a need for considerable investment in human capital,' he said. -------