Productive writing

Declan from Crawl Across the Ocean points out that if we have a productivity problem (and we can't be sure of that), it can probably be traced to high profits and a good job market which are driving Canadians to work more hours. The punchline:

I'm sure our business leaders (led as always by Thomas d'Aquino) will be sending out the message loud and clear that what Canada really needs in order to be prosperous is a more competitive business climate. Look for the bosses at Westjet and Air Canada to be promoting the opening of the skies to foreign carriers. Look for the big bank heads to be asking the government to say 'No' to mergers and 'Yes' to more foreign competition. Look for all business leaders to agree that record high corporate profitability (and the accompanying record high CEO compensation) has been dragging down productivity and that something must be done.

Very nicely put. As observed by Declan, there's little reason to think government can do much about productivity numbers, even less reason to think that the current trend is a negative one in any event, and absolutely no reason to think that the people actually decrying the current numbers would like to see the changes that would be most likely to push productivity upward. So let's put this one on the back burner for now.