I'm going to use the results of this poll in a diary during the Social Security Defenders blogathon March 25th thru the 29th. There are 4 major components that hinder or propel GDP growth, Resources, Energy, Productivity and workforce growth. All 4 propelled GDP growth 40 to 80 years ago. Today Resources, Energy and workforce growth are incapable of fueling GDP growth as they did in decades past. Productivity continues to increase but wage growth has been decoupled from productivity since about 1973.
The days of GDP growth of 8%-10%-12% are long gone, easy to find oil and metals fed GDP growth in past decades. Oil is found deeper and isnt the light crude of decades past, crudes are medium and heavy. Resources like Iron ore in the form of hematite, found in shallow formations and of extremely high quality have run out, Hematite mines in the US started to shut down in the early 1970's. Today Taconite is mined from open pit mines a mile deep. Taconite has to crushed before going into a blast furnace, adding another step that wasn't needed when hematite was plentiful.
Our workforce is not growing as it used to, workforce growth was 1.2% in 2012, and the Bureau of Labor and Statistics predicts by 2050, workforce growth will be down to .7%.
But as we approach 20% from Solar and 20% from Wind in 15-18 years, cheap renewables will rewrite electricity prices, and we should see better growth.
Economist Dean Baker will be publishing his diary about productivity vs demographics at 11am on Friday, March 29th.