Productivity up ... Wages down!	Corporate economic efficiency is improving A plot of productivity versus wage growth shows that since the 1970s, NONE of the benefit of increased productivity has gone to improving wages ... ALL of it has gone to profits and to the benefit of owners. TPB Note: It concerns me that eminent economists have talked about this problem for more than 40 years, and yet there has been almost no action by policy makers or anyone else in leadership positions to do something to solve the problem. My conclusion is that powerful people who understand management are really very happy with the prevailing outcomes and do not want to do damage to the 'golden goose' and most of the people who have concern for the issues of society and the environment don't know much about how management works, and especially management information. This is the underlying premise of the TVIA initiative!
Productivity up ... Wages down!	Increased productivity does not result in higher wages This graphic prepared by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich in 2011 shows the same basic information ... that NONE of the benefit of increased productivity has gone to improving wages ... ALL of it has gone to profits and to the benefit of owners. For more than 30 years all the benefits of improved productivity has gone to owners, with none going to those that work. In contrast, in the earlier period 1945 to 1980 the growth of productivity was shared equitably between investors and workers.

Non-financial profits fluctuate wildly

This set of data (from Andrew McAfee) shows a modest growth in GDP for the USA from 1995 to 2011. In this period corporate investment increased but dropped as the economy went into a short recession after the post Y2K tech boom and again in the so called 'great recession' of the period 2007/8/9. Non financial profits after tax has grown stongly from 1995 to 205 but with signficiant fluctuations with big drops in the 2000 recession and again in the great recession a few years later. Total profits after tax did not fluctuate as much as the financial sector fluctuated less even though it had a huge role in the financial crisis that was responsible for the great recession. None of these economic indicators suggests an economy and a society in trouble ... rather it looks like a set of trends that are really quite good.

... but employment - productivity ratio has declined sharply

The problem is that when the productivity / worker trends are added in (the red line) then it shows that the achievements of the economy are being obtained with less and less participation of workers. It comes as no surprise that a political candidate such as Donald Trump is able to attract votes based on a promise of change, when a very large proportion of the country's worklers are 'losing' relative to the more advantaged in the society. This is very basic economic analysis that seems to have been ignorded by politicians, policy makers and the media for a very long time.

Inequality in Brazil	Inequality Very high end apartments next to low income neighborhood in Brazil
	Very wealthy commercial and residential neighborhoods not far from poor slum dwellings in Brazil and highly polluted land. The idea that trickle down economics actually works is a myth. The evidence is that wealth aggregates towards the top, the complete opposite of trickle down!

Inequality . The Gini Index 1917 - 2011

Inequality now at near record levels There was massive inequality in the roaring 20s which was followed by the Great Depression of the 1930s. Inequality was at its lowest level in the war years of the early 1940s and remained low until the 1980s when Reagan era deregulation and the weakening of unions became Republican public policy. By the time of the Great Recession and financial crisis of 2007/8/9 inequality as measured by the Gini index was almost as high as in the 1920s.

EMPLOYMENT / UNEMPLOYMENT TRENDS
	Job loss and job creation 2007 to 2016 by month Job losses resulting from the Bush era great recession and financial crisis during the period from around January 2008 to December 2009 peaked at some 800,000 a month. Month by month from January 2010 to the end of the Obama administration, job gains were in excess of 100,000 a month with around 20% of the months more than 200,000.
	Unemployment rates 1980 to 2016 by month Unemployment rates during the great recession and financial crisis of 2007/8/9 were higher than at any time since 1982 during the early Reagan administration. There were significant increases in unemployment during the economic stress at the end of the Reagan era that required a reversal of policy by George H.W. Bush and then again another surge in unemployment at the end of the Clinton administation and the end of the dot.com bubble. Unemployment at the end of the Obama administration is lower than at any time in the last 40 years

FINANCIAL BALANCE SHEET OF THE US HOUSEHOLD
	Household Income -v- Household Debt In the period from 1972 to 2010 Household Income has declined by a modest amount, while Household Debt has increased substantially. It should be noted that this is an aggregate result for the country. Individual families are likely to be better or worse than this average, and in the case of those that are in a worse position the present state of affairs means that many families are in dire financial straits In this period of nearly 40 years the ratio of household credit to earnings has more than tripled. The problem is aggravated by the change in demographics during this same period. The population is aging, and most older households in the United States are woefully unprepared financial for their old age.

US DEMOGRAPHICS
	Working age adults in the US population The growth in the working age (24-60) population in the 1980s exceeded 1.5%, but has declined significanly since then. In 2015 the growth of this population was around 0.5%. The growth of population is one of the components of GDP growth ... and especially the growth of the working age population. Many mature economies including the United States have aging populations which are also associated with significantly lower consumption.
576 434
750 531

US GDP
All profits after tax
Non-financial profits after tax
Corporate Investments

	This set of data (from Andrew McAfee) shows a modest growth in GDP for the USA from 1995 to 2011. In this period corporate investment increased but dropped as the economy went into a short recession after the post Y2K tech boom and again in the so called 'great recession' of the period 2007/8/9. Non financial profits after tax has grown stongly from 1995 to 205 but with signficiant fluctuations with big drops in the 2000 recession and again in the great recession a few years later. Total profits after tax did not fluctuate as much as the financial sector fluctuated less even though it had a huge role in the financial crisis that was responsible for the great recession. None of these economic indicators suggests an economy and a society in trouble ... rather it looks like a set of trends that are really quite good.
	The problem is that when the productivity / worker trends are added in (the red line) then it shows that the achievements of the economy are being obtained with less and less participation of workers. It comes as no surprise that a political candidate such as Donald Trump is able to attract votes based on a promise of change, when a very large proportion of the country's worklers are 'losing' relative to the more advantaged in the society. This is very basic economic analysis that seems to have been ignorded by politicians, policy makers and the media for a very long time.

US GDP
All profits after tax
Non-financial profits after tax
Corporate Investments