Does increased productivity lead to a stable currency?
No.
Why is punctuality considered more importance in the workplace than productivity?
I've never been punctual. But I've always been extremely productive. Despite not only doing much work than my colleagues in the same role I've been always been considered the lesser employee as a result of being late. This has been the case for virtually every job I've done. In one particular role I realized I was literally doing 75-80% of the work everyday. When my co-worker went away for two weeks I did both our jobs more successfully than when the two of us were there. Despite this the other guy who was useless at the job had a higher standing in the company because he was always on time I met someone today who ran a business and said that it's far more important that I'm on time and at my desk than actually being able to do the job. I found this extremely depressing. What is the logic behind this? It just strikes me as idiotic. Isn't employing seat fillers in my part why the economy is in tatters?
Does an extended growing season really mean greater plant productivity?
There are four main limiting factors in plant growth: sunlight, water, temperature and nutrient availability. Improving any one of these only shifts the balance and in terms of crop production, nutrient availability is the problem. Lots of people think that increasing atmospheric carbon automatically improves productivity, but this is bullshit since it is tied to soil nitrogen and phosphorus as well as temperature. And then if water is limited, it doesn't matter how much extra N and P is in the soil or CO2 is in the air because the plants need water to absorb N and P from the soil (with some exceptions). The decrease in rubisco means less nitrogen is required, but this may still be a net increase to increase productivity (albeit lower N:C ratios). The solution to this for agriculture is to irrigate (reducing environmental flows) and add fertilisers, which release... NxO greenhouse gasses!! So there is no way increasing productivity will balance other effects on natural ecosystems and agricultural systems are likely to just worsen the problems without technological innovations to offset these issues. Carbon fixation is only the energy source for plants, they need the other minerals for protein synthesis. Energy is used to drive protein synthesis and reproduction but without enough water and nutrients there is no need for extra energy, so photosynthesis is reduced. Some studies have also shown that increasing CO2 is only beneficial while temps remain below certain thresholds. So the whole idea that warmer climates and more CO2 is good for productivity is... to steal from climate realist... plant food. FACE experiments used increases in CO2 without increasing temperature effects to measure the influences, and found they are mainly beneficial but regions with low nitrogen in soils do not benefit as much as increasing temps offsets the effects of carbon fertilisation. Ainsworth and Long (2005). What have we learned from 15 years of free-air CO2 enrichment (FACE)? A meta-analytic review of the responses of photosynthesis, canopy properties and plant production to rising CO2. New Phytologist Volume 165, Issue 2, pages 351–372. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.11... Leakey et al (2009). Elevated CO2 effects on plant carbon, nitrogen, and water relations: six important lessons from FACE. Journal of Experimental Botany, Vol. 60, No. 10, pp. 2859–2876. http://www.bnl.gov/pubweb/alistairrogers...
What is the historical relationship between productivity and the real wage?
Relationship positive. Real wages tend to be tied to productivity. This is the reason the most productive members of our society tend to earn more than less productive members. Labor demand is less if productivity increases all things being equal. This assumes homogeneous output and productivity of labor producers. LG
How is raising minimum wage going to help the economy.?
easy.......if you stray away from ideology for just a month and concentrate on facts, you will realize that we have had many many minimum wage increases in the past and actually had fantastic economies. Of course, from the very beginning, there are those who said...oh no....the horror of it, the world will end..the economy will crash, jobs will be killed when the minimum wage was first ever implemented. Of course, none of those scary bad things happened, and they nevery happened either the 20 or so subsequent times over the course of many many many many decades when we again raised the minimum wage...even as the anti minimum wage people put up their backs and predicted disaster each time a new proposal came up. How does the minimum wage help the economy? it does by making more people's lives easier by giving them more money to spend to buy things that they direly need to live on ;ike food, clothing, shelter, prescriptions, an occasional night out, etc......it moves money from where it is likely to be saved or idle, to where it is in the hands of people that will definitely spend it.....and spending....demand for things.....buying things is the real driver of an economy...not the only thing, but really the most important thing. The first rule of economics and the market is that there must be a demand for something, and demand is increased as people have money to spend, then comes more supply as producers rush in to fill demand...and as producers rush in to provide more supply a boost is given to hiring and hiring creates more demand as more people get more money to spend etc....
Are there any good alternatives to Google Groups?
if you're managing members of a community, my company Mobilize (mobilize.io) combines CRM+messaging+community+member directory+events in one place.It's like replacing Google groups, Mailchimp, Facebook groups, Google registration forms, spreadsheets, events, Doodle polls, group SMS, and file sharing, all 9 rolled into one, plus built-in analytics.1st ever platform designed for group communication and member engagement, from independent groups to associations to enterprise networks.Good for replacing a list serv, professional communities, associations, alumni networks, developer communities, partner communities, program members, startup ecosystems, volunteers, and other nonprofit communities.Mobilize's community platform is helping clients (Microsoft, Google, Etsy, Prezi, Seedcamp, Salesforce, Dermalogica, thousands of small groups, & even Special Olympics parents community!) to organize and contact members or partners, in far more sophisticated way than Google Groups.Members can participate via email without registering.Link here to sign up or send me a note, michelle [at] mobilize [dot] io :)Quick preview of the community space:On the database side, you can have unlimited fields and labels, which are embedded into the email system:You can also get analytics across the entire network (great if you have multiple sub-groups)Mobilize: Your all in one community platform