Thursday, July 30, 2015

The Wisdom of Alan Greenspan Revealed Yet Again

July 30, 2015
Alan Greenspan: This is 'extremely dangerous'

However, he noted that he sees a "strong and growing labor market" despite concerns about productivity growth.

Fred: I heard your team had to hire another programmer. Is that true?
Ted: Yeah, it's true.
Fred: Despite the lack of productivity growth of your existing programmers?
Ted: Despite? Why would you think that? No, more like because. I had to hire BECAUSE there was a productivity problem.
Fred: How so? I don't get it.
Ted: Since I couldn't get the programmers to work any faster, I was forced to hire more of them.
Fred: I don't understand. I just read that the economy has a strong and growing labor market despite concerns about productivity growth.
Ted: What idiot thought that crackpot economic theory up?
Fred: Just some former central banker.
Ted: Ah, sounds like something Alan Greenspan might say.
Fred: Damn you are smart! I'm going to give you a 5% raise!
Ted: I accept on one condition.
Fred: What's that?
Ted: I will not be working 5% longer hours!
Fred: F%^k! I was looking to pay for it with a productivity miracle!

4 comments:

  1. My companty had a nice big layoff today of about 290 at two sites. Meanwhile off shoring of production continues at a rapid pace with share buybacks. We must be highly productive

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  2. Michael,

    Please forgive me for saying this, but you seem to have a weak and shrinking domestic labor force despite being highly productive!

    Oops. I think Greenspan brainwashed me, lol. Sigh.

    In all seriousness, sorry to hear it. I hope you survived the cuts and continue to do so.

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  3. About 10 years ago I figured out that having the UPS ship your product from Shenzhen vs. making it yourself did wonders for our productivity, replacing a staff of hundreds with all the fixed capital investment of a factory line with just one customs guy with the typical office equipment requirements.

    In other news I willfully destroyed millions of dollars worth of wealth yesterday when pruning my OS X install.

    I needed 60GB space temporarily on a drive so my MAME ROM directory had to go. I might have it backed up somewhere but I found time spent playing old games from the 80s was being wasted; something Steve Jobs believed in was never looking back wistfully at the past, but always looking forward.

    Then again going retro made the Crossy Road people set for life.





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  4. Troy,

    I destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars in wealth when I quit my job in 1999. One of the best decisions I ever made. ;)

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