productivity - Page 2

Washington Post: Migrant Labor Spreads Coronavirus

Low-wage migrant farm workers are spreading coronavirus through the southeast United States as they pick crops by hand, so the fix is more testing and medical care, not more labor-saving automation, according to the Washington Post.

farm workers

NYTimes: Import More Workers to Expand the Economy

The supply of extra workers doesn’t have much effect on wages, so the government should import the foreign workers demanded by investors, says a February 27 New York Times  article, titled “Why a Top Trump Aide Said ‘We Are Desperate’ for More Immigrants.”

A farmer in Hastings, Minn. Photo: Kerem Yucel/AFP/Getty Images

Fear the Low-Productivity Economy of the Future

In fact, one of the worst things about politicized economics is the false promise that politicians know what the ideal economy looks like, never mind having solid plans for getting there. Is the ideal economy one in which everyone’s basic needs are covered? Welcome to the endless grey fog of the collectivist welfare or communist state, which always proves unsustainable and fails to deliver on those promises anyway.

AP Photo/Paul Sakuma

Amazon and The New ‘Big Data’ Proletariat

Amazon views its work environments as a tough response to slack conditions elsewhere in the labor force, encouraging excellence and superior effort from its workers by setting standards it proudly describes as “unreasonably high.” Many horrified readers thought the NYT article described brutally exploitative conditions covered by corporate happy-talk about achievement.

amazon