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Why Is the US Economy Sort of Sluggish?

by PhilomenaRawson Posted on October 10, 2016

Mother Jones

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A new paper from a trio of Fed researchers suggests that our recent sluggish growth is mostly a result of demographic changes and technological slowdown. The retired share of the population has increased, which means the working share of the population has decreased. Since workers are the ones who produce goods and services, it makes sense that GDP growth will slow down in an economy with fewer adults of working age. Ditto for an economy in which technological progress is slackening.

I’ve pointed out the same thing before in the case of Japan, and it makes sense. But how about in the US? The easiest way to see the rough shape of the river is to simply look at GDP per working-age adult. That eliminates most of the demographic issues. When you do this for the US, you get a trendline that still shows a decline in GDP growth: it’s down by about one percentage point since 1978.

You can also look at total factor productivity, which gives us an idea of the effect of technological change that’s independent of demographics. Over the past 60 years, it’s been pretty flat.

Both of these are volatile series, so take them with a grain of salt. That said, productivity hasn’t changed much, but GDP per working-age adult has steadily decreased anyway. This suggests that neither demographics nor technological progress really explains things. So what does?

NOTE: This bit of amateur economics was made possible by a grant from the Committee to Prevent Endless Blogging About Donald Trump. The author thanks them for their generosity.

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Why Is the US Economy Sort of Sluggish?

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Sorry, but your shrimp platter didn’t come from the Gulf

by WilmerBelanger Posted on October 30, 2014

shrimply appalling

Sorry, but your shrimp platter didn’t come from the Gulf

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30 Oct 2014 6:50 PM

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Sorry, but your shrimp platter didn’t come from the Gulf

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We already knew about the mangroves. We knew about the bycatch and habitat destruction. Heck, we knew about the whole SLAVERY thing, but that didn’t stop us from gobbling shrimp scampi like they’re going extinct. And, still, we hoped there might be a better way.

Now, clearly sensing we might need another deterrent to stop eating ALL THE SHRIMP all the time, the world sent us some new bad news about the tasty, tasty crustaceans: They’re probably not what you think they are.

In a report released Thursday, ocean-advocacy group Oceana conducted a survey of 111 restaurants and grocery stores across the U.S., and found that more than a third of the sampled shrimp were vaguely labeled, or else mislabeled entirely.

The confusion begins with the fact that there are 41 species of shrimp sold in the U.S., but any of them may just be labeled as “shrimp.” It deepens when it turns out that many of those labeled “Gulf” or “wild-caught” were really a species of farmed shrimp. It’s easy to prawn off these crustaceans as more valuable versions of themselves when more than 90 percent of the U.S. shrimp is imported, and only a small percent of that is ever inspected. Still, the depth and variety of deception is shrimply staggering. Consider this from the Guardian:

Unexpectedly, some of the shrimp that were identified in the survey were genetically unknown to science, and one sample taken from a bag of frozen seafood even turned out to be a banded coral shrimp — a species renowned on reefs and coveted as a ‘pet’ shrimp by aquarium enthusiasts, but certainly not as food. “It’s one of the things you look for on a reef,” Warner says. “How it ended up in a bag of salad-size shrimp, I have no idea.”

New York had one of the highest rates of shrimp-fraud, with 43 percent of samples misrepresented — but no one got off scot-free.

The only possible way to feel WORSE about eating shrimp is to go eat 101 of them at Red Lobster’s Endless Shrimp promotion. That’s REALLY going to hurt.

Source:
A third of US shrimp is ‘misrepresented’

, Guardian.

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Sorry, but your shrimp platter didn’t come from the Gulf

Posted in Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, organic, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Sorry, but your shrimp platter didn’t come from the Gulf