Just to give you, you know, an example, yes, you want to give your top employees good compensation and their executives so they have the ability to innovate, to make hard decisions, to take risks. but if you put all the gains from productivity on the top of the ladder, then the workers have no incentive to work hard and be loyal and be engaged in their work. that is where we are, for example, in the united states where a lot of employees aren t engaged. so we re having a productivity problem in the united states in part because we went too far in the direction, frankly, that alan greenspan wanted things to go, which was that the compensation goes to those at the top. it seems like we have a hard time balancing in all ages from the mid to late 1800s until
Production trade. economics, i thought economics for 20 years, sometimes we look at it there s other reasons, productivity in this country has been going down, down for a lot of reasons other than trade, china is cheating, we need to fight back at unfair trading and practices and president trump is coming through on a promise that the american people will understand. the elites always benefit from trade but the middle class, their wages have been flat for 30 years and bernie and the democrats had always run on that too, their positioning right now is pretty unique but we need to get back to the fundamentals that make us productive as a nation, that s our fundamental problem, we did tax cuts, that s good, regs are coming down but education is the number one problem we have. if our kids do not love business and do not wanting to into business, and a lot of them don t know what is a business is when they graduate from high school, that is the source of productivity problem in this count
i think there are four things probably every company of any size can do. basically no matter what your fallacy is, if somebody is sick or taking care of their mother they have to deal with that and unfortunately the health care system pretty much works from 9:00 to 5:00 monday through friday, exactly when you want to be at work. so things you can do that prevent what they call absenteeism, which is like a $790 billion productivity problem in the united states, or another aspect is presenteeism, when people come to work but maybe they shouldn t. maybe they re not at their best because they have a migraine or suffering from depression or something like that. you just need to address it head-on. and the first thing you can do is be flexible. if you have a business where, look, i know you can get your job done in eight hours a day, i don t really care when do you it, then if i can let you work in the morning or in the evening, and just focus on the output of your job, that can be hugely
Things, probably, at every company of any size can do. basically, no matter what your policy is, somebody is sick or they are taking care of their mother, they have to deal with that, right? unfortunately, the health care system pretty much works 9:00 to 5:00 monday to friday, exactly when you want to be at work. so things to prevent absenteeism, which is like a $790 billion productivity problem in the united states, or another aspect is presenteeism when people come to work but are not at their best, suffering a migraine or something like that. so address it head-on. and the first thing you can do is be flexible. if you have a business where, look, i know you can get your job done in eight hours a day, i don t care when you do it, then if i can let you work in the morning or in the evening and just focus on the output of your job, that s hugely helpful to that person. do you have to do that for