Build, Baby, Build with Bryan Caplan

[@Ryanrobi]

When you mentioned the Francis Scott key bridge and how much it would cost and how much time it would take to replace it That's almost exactly what the research has shown over the last 50 years when you look at productivity rates per worker hour in construction. It's one of the only industries that's gotten much much less productive per worker hour even with better technology, for example the average construction worker hour is about 50 to 60% less productive than it was in 1972 that's absolutely insane. It's similar for other occupations like truck driving the average truck driver in one year does about 30% less than they did in 1972. In fact there are only a few industries that are much more productive than 1972 those are information technology commercial mining especially hydrofracking commercial agriculture in forestry and finance. This is why it's frustrating when you see people that look at the average worker productivity in the United States and how it has gone up since 1972 and how on average wages have not kept pace but what they don't show you is that if you look at industry by industry all of those gains only came from the industries I listed above in their wages have more than kept up with inflation because they become more productive but when you average it all together it looks like people have not got paid more but it's actually masking the productivity problem in all the other industries that are not becoming more productive and it all started in about 1972 when all these regulations came to pass as well as the oil embargo.