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To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (177719)	1/18/2009 1:16:57 PM
From: James Hutton	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

"you must be kidding the productivity miracle was real. Huge companies were created during Clintons term that validate this." Talk to Skeeter Bug. He/She said it wasn't real. I was trying to summarize his/her argument.

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (177719)	1/18/2009 11:51:43 PM
From: Live2Sail	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

I happen to be a disbeliever in the productivity miracle as well for two reasons. Essentially, the GDP was totally goosed by financial shenanigans. If we were to remove financial companies from the calculation of GDP, would we have had such "high" productivity. Secondly, and this is a bit philosophical, a large increase in productivity growth would mean that our ingenuity greatly increased over a short period of time and only for a short period of time. I didn't believe that our ingenuity had improved when Greenspan touted it back in 1999, and I don't believe it now.

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (177719)	1/19/2009 2:15:40 AM
From: Skeeter Bug	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

Lizzie, let me clarify using micron tech as an example (a dram manufacturer). during the 1990s until present, their unit productivity increases have been amazing. simply stunning. but unit productivity doesn't add to GDP, rather, increases in one's ability to produce dollars does. would you be startled to know that micron frequently quadrupled output only to lose more money as a company? why? increasing productivity meant increasing output and this drove down dram prices. there is no doubt that unit productivity increased dramatically in many cases. just like dram mfging, though, supply and demand reduced the price per unit and GDP essentially increased just a little bit. this is a fact. the marginal dollars weren't lost anywhere, they just didn't exist. so greenspan faked the numbers (hedonic pricing and chain weighted dollars). again, fact. if things were as you allege, there would be no need to fake the GDP numbers, now would there?