Sorry, I didn't explain it well. 70% of GDP is private consumption. 30% is public consumption -- everything that the city, county, state, and federal governments spend, everything from submarines to city owned hospitals. The US does have a solid production base, though some of it is located in places like China, Vietnam, and Bangladesh.

It's a perfectly normal looking pyramid, just like the one Cheops built. The bottom 70% is consumer spending, the top 30% is government spending.

Besides that, I don't at all think of Americans as lazy, though we do tend to be over-weight on to obese, but that is increasingly a world-wide problem. In an economy, the people both produce and consume, their share and government's share too.

I think it is a very safe assumption that a significant share of work that we do is organized in an inefficient manner. Many Americans spend too much time at work. I'm retired now, but that was true for my work in social services -- too much time spent inefficiently. For instance, a requirement to account for one's time spent delivering services in 15 minute increments is a drag on delivery. So are pointless meetings.

Im thinking that with all the technology we only have higher consumption. How is it in 80 years, 40 hour norm isn’t commensurate with the efficiency in technology and reduced accordingly.

Americans as lazy, though we do tend to be over-weight — Bitter Crank

:up:

Two ways to obesity: Sloth OR Gluttony. For America, for even other countries, I suspect it's the latter. Either way we sin, so yeah, nothing to brag about!

technology — schopenhauer1

Robot revolution pending...



Millions of jobs will slip out of the hands of humans and then...finally...we can rest.

Yeah mentioned that earlier. Not gonna happen any time soon.

Im thinking that with all the technology we only have higher consumption. — schopenhauer1

This seems to be true. First, there is the purchase of the technology itself. One bought the desk computer and put the typewriter in the basement. One bought a desk-top printer, then refills of ink or toner. One bought the nice little cell phone, then a case to put it in; then there are the monthly service fees. (Of course there are monthly services for land lines too.). One wants some apps that provide special features, games, music and so on. Lots of stuff works this way.

How is it in 80 years, 40 hour norm isn’t commensurate with the efficiency in technology and reduced accordingly. — schopenhauer1

That's a good question. Maybe...

IF one is paid by the hour, the longer one is on the clock, the more one gets paid. Maybe one could do one's job in 6 hours, but that means 2 fewer hours of pay. If one gets paid a salary, and one can't just get up and leave for the day when one has nothing more to do, there is no incentive to be more efficient. Large numbers of workers get a 40 hour a week block; they get paid the same whether they are efficient or not.

Parkinson's law: Work expands to fill the available time, just as paper expands to fill the available space. Have we not all had to experience of stretching a 1 hour task out to 3 hours, because the other things waiting to do were not very appealing?

If the workday was cut from 8 hours per shift to 6 hours (no change in day) my guess is people would get their jobs done in 6 hours. (Of course, if one's job requires being on duty for 8 hours, like a nurse, waiter, cop, etc., this wouldn't apply.). Employing workers for 4 six hour shift a day, rather than 3 eight hour shifts probably isn't going to happen, but it could.

Yeah mentioned that earlier. Not gonna happen any time soon. — schopenhauer1

Slaves (human) & draft animals: We have been trying to reduce our workload, just not in the right way. Robots are the solution: power with no ethical conundrums to solve unless (there's always an exception) you're the Pygmalion type.