"Paul Hovnanian P.E." hath wroth:
Jim Thompson wrote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6976084.stm
A couple of problems with this sort of statistic. First:
"The ILO productivity figure is found by dividing a country's total
output in a year by the number of people employed."
Unfortunately, there's no way of telling what the cost of that output
should be and whether or not it has properly been accounted for. They
don't go around quoting 'Net' National Product but 'Gross' National
Product.
Actually, the desired term is GDP (gross domestic product) which
includes compensation for inport/export values. See formulas at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product
The BBC article doesn't mention either GDP or GNP or any other
recognizable metric. Since the ILO is part of the UN, they probably
do their own numbers. It's difficult to tell what the ILO means by
"country's total output", so let's backtrack:
http://www.ilo.org/global/About_the_ILO/Media_and_public_information/Press_releases/lang--en/WCMS_083976/index.htm
http://www.ilo.org/trends/
It appears to be their own unique and rather extensive method of
measurement called KILM:
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/strat/kilm/index.htm
The report is actually a 22Mbyte Windoze program, not a printed
report. Cool:
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/strat/kilm/download.htm
You have to register to download. I just started downloading, but
it's taking nearly forever to download. Yawn...
Take Boeing for example. They sell a $100 million airplane and
the GNP is credited with $100 million. Its not evident from that number
that a good part of the value of the product is foreign made and should
properly be credited to its country of origin.
GDP compensates for that. GNP does not. See formulas in the
Wikipedia article.
Another problem:
They are measuring output in dollars. Certainly a $10 American made
widget will appear to be 10x the 'output' of a $1 Chinese widget, even
though the widgets may be functionally identical.
Sure, but the cost of living is equally higher in the US than it is in
China. It sorta balances using PPP (purchasing power parity):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29
Note the large differences in income depending upon the source. Wanna
prove poverty? No problem, just juggle the metrics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality
Still downloading. Reminds me of when I was on dialup (shudder). Back
when it's done.
Incidentally, this has nothing to do with electronic schematics and
electronics design, but I'll pretend not to notice.
--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060
http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558