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U.S. workers have gotten less productive – no one is sure why

washingtonpost.com

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Re: U.S. workers have gotten less productive – no one is sure why

#681

Post by watwut »

f1refly wrote: post #667
jimlongton wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> towards something in which everything was codified, safetyism became rampant Those "gentleman's agreements" were not that great if you happened to be a woman, gay or any other minority. The upsides to HR, employment regulation and so on has been making the office a far better place to work for a lot of people. While I agree that there are rampant problems in a lot of sectors, from low skilled to medical, there have…

> Those "gentleman's agreements" were not that great if you happened to be a woman, gay or any other minority. You just say that like it's a fact, but... why would that be the case?

Because one can break gentlemen agreement against people with lower social status. Also, because low key bullying or lying about or whatever of people with lower social status is acceptable for gentlemen.

Re: U.S. workers have gotten less productive – no one is sure why

#682

Post by lotsofpulp »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #631
lotsofpulp wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume the parents and staff at my daycare just have a collective unspoken agreement to not test for covid. The remaining Covid policies are stupidly inconsistent anyway. RSV is far more dangerous to children, but that is allowed to go unchecked. Hell, you have to pay $250+ just to get tested for it. Rhinovirus/influenza/norovirus/rotavirus/other coronaviruses are all OK, with kids leaking from both nostrils in the…

> Covid tests are paid for by government, but testing for all the other viruses costs hundreds of dollars? What a farce. None of the other viruses have caused a pandemic, and changed the course of human history (except influenza, but that was almost a century ago). Have people literally forgotten that entire countries' health systems were overwhelmed by this virus? Seems like it would be prudent to keep infected indi…

RSV is overwhelming some hospitals:

https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/ydhvbs/how_are_my...

Although, the whole hospital volume thing is now wrapped up in pay shortages and rationing of healthcare, so do not really know how much the spread of virus is contributing and how much the lack of resources being put towards healthcare, and specifically pediatric healthcare is contributing.

> Seems like it would be prudent to keep infected individuals out of our public school systems for a few more years.

This is not possible unless you quarantine toddlers and young kids from each other for years, and I am not willing to pay the price of my kids’ development.

Not to mention that parents need to earn incomes to shelter and feed their kids.

Also, I have had 5 Covid vaccine injections, my kids have had 2, but there exists no RSV vaccine. And RSV is specifically bad for kids, causing a fever almost every time. Given the lack of voting power for those affected, I imagine there is not much political will to spend money on expediting R&D for an RSV vaccine. Just like how pediatric healthcare gets reimbursed at 60% to 75% of adult healthcare.

Re: U.S. workers have gotten less productive – no one is sure why

#683

Post by AnthonBerg »

Animats wrote: post #526
AnthonBerg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. In support of this—part of it!—here’s one paper of many: “The Neurobiology of Long COVID” by M. Monje, neurobiologist at Stanford, and A. Iwasaki, immunologist at Yale. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2022.10.006 People with measurable neurobiological issues will show a measurable productivity drop .

Prevalence of "Long COVID" is hard to measure at this point, but based on symptom reporting, about 15% of people who test positive for COVID have some symptoms more than 2 months later.[1] More data is available for people who have had heart and brain MRI scans, which show inflammation. It may be possible to diagnose this with a special eye exam that detects inflammation in the eye's blood vessels. The tests are stil…

In support of this, I want to mention that there are known and measurable biomarkers that connect reported symptoms to undeniable physical symptoms.

Low cortisol is very common. That’s just one example. With low cortisol it’s hard to feel good or function 100%.

One paper of many that show this kind of relationship (a preprint): “Distinguishing features of Long COVID identified through immune profiling” — https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.08.09.22278592

It’s also important to note that there was a study that seemed to show that Long COVID was just anxiety or in people’s imagination. Because people who said they had Long COVID didn’t have SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. The thing is that not everybody seroconverts. Not everybody actually produces antibodies after infection; We simply can’t exclude Long COVID diagnoses based on looking at those particular antibodies. So that study can’t show what it has been said to show. (I can provide sources for this but am out of time. It’s on my honor.)

Re: U.S. workers have gotten less productive – no one is sure why

#684

Post by sethd »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #571
dougmwne wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally one of these on the front page of the NYT today, fully of chirpy anecdotes about people ditching the sweatpants and silly comments about how much our dogs will miss us when we go back to "real work". You may kindly shove it, NYT. I'm not going back. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/29/technology/return-to-offi...

Years ago the NYT was great. Now it's so cringy that half the time you wonder if it was hacked / hijacked by TMZ. Sadly, in terms of trust and credibility TMZ wins. It's never anything less or more than it promises to be. If only other media outlets were as honest and had as much integrity.

I agree but I’d say it’s become more like something that resembles Huffington Post than TMZ.

Re: U.S. workers have gotten less productive – no one is sure why

#687

Post by shadowgovt »

WalterBright wrote: post #662
shadowgovt wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I've just spent too many years in government contracting, but when I hear that a government program is growing, I hear economic stimulus, not pulling something out of the economy.

I wonder why those countries that "stimulate" their economies tend to do poorly.

Do they?

China's GDP growth consistently out-paces the US. Canada continues to do well. Germany has consistently positive GDP growth with a few exceptions related to international downturns. And, of course, if you're talking about countries that use economic stimulus, you'll have to include the United States, which has the largest GDP in the world. I think your claim requires a tighter definition of "economy" and "do poorly" to hold merit.

Everybody is doing more poorly than growth estimates, but (a) COVID just happened and (b) everyone always does worse than growth estimates; growth estimates are the rewarded metric and therefore incentives are high to over-estimate it in extrapolation as another form of incentive (i.e. aim higher than you want to hit).

Re: U.S. workers have gotten less productive – no one is sure why

#688

Post by shadowgovt »

selimthegrim wrote: post #678
WalterBright wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, what does "massive growth in government" even mean? 1. the amount of money it spends 2. the amount of interference in the workings of the marketplace, usually called "unfunded mandates" where they put burdens on businesses > I feel like you're hinting at some kind of alternative that I can't possibly guess at. A much more limited government.

Caltech basically ran on government money so you can thank them for your entire undergraduate education (yes I know you paid tuition but it was no doubt minimal)

And, of course, we're ignoring the elephant in the room if we don't mention the Internet started as a government project.

Re: U.S. workers have gotten less productive – no one is sure why

#689

Post by bigbillheck »

krater23 wrote: post #391
AnthonBerg wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many, many scientists who are attempting to warn us that isn’t nothing. The literature is piling up. Paper: Immunological dysfunction persists for 8 months following initial mild-to-moderate SARS-CoV-2 infection – https://doi.org/10.1038/s41590-021-01113-x Paper: “Excess risk for acute myocardial infarction mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic” — https://doi.org/10.1002/jmv.28187 Paper: “p53/NF-kB Balance…

I would not wonder if you throw so much research time to a normal flu you will find similar things.

There's been a serious research effort against influenza for a century now.

Re: U.S. workers have gotten less productive – no one is sure why

#690

Post by coldpie »

roflyear wrote: post #636
coldpie wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But is it just me? No. I go into the office every day because I feel the same. I need to get out of the house and see people. (It is OK if you, reader, do not feel this way! People are different!) There's a handful of other folks who come in every day. I'm starting up a project this week to revive our office culture a bit, to try to spring back from the COVID devastation.

I wouldn't want to force you to stay home, just don't force people to go into the office :)

Where did I say anything like that?
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