People are rightly focused on government spending, GDP growth, increases in the deficit and debt, and obviously inflation.
Each of those matters quite a bit, obviously, but the most important measure of the health of the economy is usually left out of economic discussions: productivity growth.
The United States doesn’t have its fiscal house in order, and it is true that runaway government spending and rapidly increasing debt threaten our prosperity. Government spending has been driving a large chunk of the inflation we have seen, and that leads directly to the pain we are feeling.
But the single-biggest reason that the United States still can have a bright future is that Americans themselves are extremely productive–we are by far the most productive economy in the world, save a few tiny countries. Compared to our peers the United States is a standout…
