Quote Sal Paradise="Sal Paradise"IMO productivity is low for three reasons: General resistance to change, zero Kaizen culture and a lack of capital investment.
We see where all the above are embraced we can deliver world class performance e.g. car production where our factories are on a par or better than the best in the world.
On the housing it begs the question what did the councils do with all the money they received from the houses they sold and what had they been doing with all the millions they must have been making from owning all those houses they rented out.
The housing market would be much stronger if the ability to borrow especially for younger people was achievable asking a young couple to put up £15k as a deposit is asking too much. Builders aren't building because the demand isn't there - why is that because the bottom rung of the ladder isn't getting replenished with new buyers.'"
Normally a consumer-led recovery (as we have more or less had since the 2008 crisis) is followed by increased business investment which makes a recovery sustainable. This has not happened this time and that is another reason the UK economy looks to be heading for trouble.
Lack of investment is partly due to uncertainty, a changing world were tangible assets are less important than intangibles but mainly because the leaders of major companies (that so called world-class talent pool, that must be paid a lot) are useless. They prefer to return capital to shareholders and achieve easy targets for their bonuses than take a risk or have a strategic vision. A study in the US has shown that those companies that have not returned funds to shareholders but reinvested are on average vastly outperforming those who did (the latter often receiving plaudits from the City and Wall Steet). The whole economic system is broken and has been hijacked by the fast buck mentality. It needs re-engineering.
On a separate point, the future looks bleaker for the many as the winner takes all economy progresses and AI comes on stream too. We are heading for a modern version of the mass proletariat and mill-owner / pit-owner model. This time though it will be the ultra-wealthy few and a mass of care workers, bar men, waiters, etc. as middle class office jobs go under AI and we are left just with those jobs that require more brain-power such as cleaning, serving and caring.
