On Dec 19, 2007, at 1:17 PM, Seth Ackerman wrote:
> That's not what I was saying. Productivity improvements were
> concentrated in a few sectors, but that's exactly what you would
> expect
> from a boom. Every boom is focused on particular sectors. The point is
> that the upsurge in productivity was certainly not caused by
> eliminating
> low-productivity activities but rather by large and genuine
> productivity
> advances in major sectors of the economy.
A footnote: all the productivity gains in retail came from new stores, not existing ones. It was basically Wal-Mart putting mom & pop out of business.
Doug