Why is productivity so low? The main reason is due to excessive debt and BoE/government desperation to keep interest rates low. This keeps zombie companies alive which tie up resources that in theory could be more efficiently used if they went bust and new ones took their place. I think I read recently that there are something like 96,000 companies which could not cope with even a 0.25 per cent in interest rates on their loans.

Then there are the capitalists beloved zero hours contracts and part time working. Lots of employment in terms of jobs but no real efficiency.

Other factors include the fact that to do the simplest of tasks that 10 years ago would take say one minute (e.g. Speaking to a company / HMRC / etc to resolve a simple matter) will now take hours, days or weeks due to email, lack of customer care (but moronic 'customer services'), lack of common sense and inability to do anything / be allowed to do anything other than read from a script, automated telephone systems with wasteful recorded messages, etc. In short US business school crap. It may work in McDonalds but it doesn't work in lots of fields.

Times are about too change though in my view. The UK economy looks set for a huge shock. The building industry has slowed (traditionally the sign of a recession coming), the dominant services sector is slowing, inflation exceeds wages growth, we have the 4th highest level of household debt in the world, the property market is slowing, the retail sector is slowing and showing the potential for major collapses, US interest rates are going up and expected to be up to 3 per cent within a year which means the pound continues to fall against the dollar and will create further inflation, Brexit will put pressure on further, BoE will soon need to raise rates to stop the pound falling but that will put thousands of zombie businesses under with huge job losses, households will struggle to pay their huge debts and the ramifications of that are clear. I predict that this next year or at a push 18 months we'll think that we never had it do good as during the 7 years of austerity.

When all those poor people lose their jobs productivity will inevitably rise but will it really help people?

People talk of Corbyn's magic money tree but we currently live in a bizarre world where taxpayers money is used to subsidise individual and large companies. A magic money tree for the few, not the many. A sort of reverse Robin Hood. In essence the economics of the mad house. E.g. utilities, railways etc - subsidise profits and bills of foreigners. Getting rid of counciil houses - instead of the public getting money back via rents we have a huge bill in housing benefit not a penny of which goes to the people who need it but ends up in the pockets of private landlords (a number of major ones being Tory MPs and party donors). Then there is the NHS and care. One small care provider I know of put £3M into a tax avoidance scheme for the directors one year - not bad on a turnover of just £12m. A charity / public sector provider would work on a no profit basis. So is the private provider more efficient? Of course not. It is just not providing care - when the principal cost of care is wages and they throughout all providers are at or near the NMW then the only way that 25 per cent net (not gross) profit can be made is by providing less than 75 per cent of the minimum care needed.

This state of affairs is truly shocking and is unsustainable. People need to stand up and be counted to challenge it.

The analysis above is spot on. I've always thought 'Atlas shrugged' was Dally's bible
I'd also add that 2008 was a great opportunity to let the banks fail and completely reform the banking system and re-balance the economy. I would've gone as far as to distribute the money used to bail out the banks to every household in the UK on the condition that they use it to pay their debts. If they have no debt then they're free to spend that money in the economy. We're past the point of no return though, and we're teetering on the edge of a cliff, and we've done nothing to try and rectify this, in fact, we've taken steps to make the problems worse.

IMO productivity is low for three reasons: General resistance to change, zero Kaizen culture and a lack of capital investment.

We see where all the above are embraced we can deliver world class performance e.g. car production where our factories are on a par or better than the best in the world.

On the housing it begs the question what did the councils do with all the money they received from the houses they sold and what had they been doing with all the millions they must have been making from owning all those houses they rented out.

The housing market would be much stronger if the ability to borrow especially for younger people was achievable asking a young couple to put up £15k as a deposit is asking too much. Builders aren't building because the demand isn't there - why is that because the bottom rung of the ladder isn't getting replenished with new buyers.

The building sector is suffering because it's overpriced and poor quality, I've looked at New Build houses and the workmanship (if you can call it that) is shoddy.

Partly the issue of lack of investment is the banks unwillingness to lend. How many companies SME's have seen their overdraft replaced by ID facilities as the banks continue to de-risk.

I think most CEOs have a desire to stay in the job as long as possible - that means selling a strategic vision - yes there is a need for investors to get a return but good shareholders understand the cyclical nature of business the fact that greedy fund managers don't is an issue.

Banks want to sell you services not money.

As you may recall I have been a long-term critic of CEO and the bonus culture saying they / it cause loss of value all round. Seems from this article this evening that somebody has done a study that shows just that: www.standard.co.uk/business/anth ... 69946.html

As you may recall I have been a long-term critic of CEO and the bonus culture saying they / it cause loss of value all round. Seems from this article this evening that somebody has done a study that shows just that: www.standard.co.uk/business/anth ... 69946.html

In this country we appear to have an inability to embrace change an example would be the NHS - I was in hospital earlier in the year for an operation - all my notes were still on bits of paper - that's inefficient most commercial businesses would have abandoned that for digital technology.

Why was Brailsford thought of so highly - because he used a Kaizen culture of micro improvements (marginal gains) to gain competitive advantage on his rivals. You may not agree with his treatment of people - although Steve Redgrave defended it on 5 live on Sunday - but his methods of better suits, better bikes better training has proved incredibly successful. If this were the norm in the UK nobody would have batted an eyelid. How many companies outside of those owned by the Japanese actually have Kaizen programs or programs of continual improvement.?

Brexit only happened a year ago - lack of investment has been going on since the crash - that is because its very difficult to borrow money from the bank - they don't want to sell money

A little bit confusing. You say as a country we don't embrace change, but then say that most business have indeed embraced change? Ideally of course the NHS would be adopting any technology that would enable it to perform more efficiently (providing they have the funding and expertise available to deliver it). Also, in the commercial world you have competition as a factor driving such decisions, you have the movement of labour between companies taking with it new ideas & ways of thinking.

Regardless, there are extensive transformation projects going on in the NHS currently. Also, there are examples where technology has been embraced. I can book GP appointments online, I can check in at the GP surgery using the tablet they have there, things like that. Certainly room for improvement I accept, but I don't think it's as old fashioned as some might think.



I suppose the answer would be how many don't? Most large companies have their own transformation departments that drive an increase in efficiency and reduce cost. There's no doubting Brailsford's methods achieved results, but now easily can this be rolled out en-masse, and what are the negative impacts?



It's a bit of both. Bren is right in that there is a fear of what will happen during & post-Brexit and companies are keeping their powder dry to an extent, but there is a reluctance to lend. I have a business that relies predominantly on the ability to secure finance to be able to make further capital investments. A year or so ago (post crash), you're right, it wasn't easy to borrow, but in the past year or so it has gone to the next level. Lenders are being extremely careful, and the level of risk they're willing to take very very low.

You wholly miss the point. If CEOs had invested in their company's futures rather than their own those companies would be MORE profitable and paying more CT, thus reducing the deficit.

No you miss the point - they didn't invest because it would hit profits in the short term until the ROI kicked so reducing the CT paid.