full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Robert Gordon: The death of innovation, the end of growth

Unscramble the Blue Letters


The first hnidwead is demographics. It's a truism that your standard of living rises faster than productivity, rises faster than output per hour, if hours per person icaersned. And we got that gift back in the '70s and '80s when women entered the labor force. But now it's tenurd around. Now hruos per person are shrinking, first because of the remeietrnt of the baby boomers, and second because there's been a very significant dropping out of the labor force of prmie age auldt melas who are in the bottom half of the educational distribution.

The next headwind is education. We've got problems all over our educational system despite Race to the Top. In college, we've got cost ioanltfin in higher education that dwarfs cost inflation in medical care. We have in higher education a trillion dollars of student debt, and our college completion rate is 15 points, 15 percentage points below cdaana. We have a lot of debt. Our economy grew from 2000 to 2007 on the back of consumers massively overborrowing. cumosners paying off that debt is one of the main reasnos why our economic recovery is so suislggh toady. And everybody of course knows that the federal government debt is growing as a share of GDP at a very rapid rate, and the only way that's going to stop is some combination of faster growth in taxes or slower gtrwoh in entitlements, also called transfer payments. And that gets us down from the 1.5, where we've reached for education, down to 1.3.

Open Cloze


The first ________ is demographics. It's a truism that your standard of living rises faster than productivity, rises faster than output per hour, if hours per person _________. And we got that gift back in the '70s and '80s when women entered the labor force. But now it's ______ around. Now _____ per person are shrinking, first because of the __________ of the baby boomers, and second because there's been a very significant dropping out of the labor force of _____ age _____ _____ who are in the bottom half of the educational distribution.

The next headwind is education. We've got problems all over our educational system despite Race to the Top. In college, we've got cost _________ in higher education that dwarfs cost inflation in medical care. We have in higher education a trillion dollars of student debt, and our college completion rate is 15 points, 15 percentage points below ______. We have a lot of debt. Our economy grew from 2000 to 2007 on the back of consumers massively overborrowing. _________ paying off that debt is one of the main _______ why our economic recovery is so ________ _____. And everybody of course knows that the federal government debt is growing as a share of GDP at a very rapid rate, and the only way that's going to stop is some combination of faster growth in taxes or slower ______ in entitlements, also called transfer payments. And that gets us down from the 1.5, where we've reached for education, down to 1.3.

Solution


  1. sluggish
  2. canada
  3. hours
  4. consumers
  5. adult
  6. retirement
  7. growth
  8. today
  9. turned
  10. increased
  11. inflation
  12. headwind
  13. males
  14. prime
  15. reasons

Original Text


The first headwind is demographics. It's a truism that your standard of living rises faster than productivity, rises faster than output per hour, if hours per person increased. And we got that gift back in the '70s and '80s when women entered the labor force. But now it's turned around. Now hours per person are shrinking, first because of the retirement of the baby boomers, and second because there's been a very significant dropping out of the labor force of prime age adult males who are in the bottom half of the educational distribution.

The next headwind is education. We've got problems all over our educational system despite Race to the Top. In college, we've got cost inflation in higher education that dwarfs cost inflation in medical care. We have in higher education a trillion dollars of student debt, and our college completion rate is 15 points, 15 percentage points below Canada. We have a lot of debt. Our economy grew from 2000 to 2007 on the back of consumers massively overborrowing. Consumers paying off that debt is one of the main reasons why our economic recovery is so sluggish today. And everybody of course knows that the federal government debt is growing as a share of GDP at a very rapid rate, and the only way that's going to stop is some combination of faster growth in taxes or slower growth in entitlements, also called transfer payments. And that gets us down from the 1.5, where we've reached for education, down to 1.3.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
economic growth 3
agricultural land 3
vertical axis 2
united states 2
curved line 2
rises faster 2
labor force 2
cost inflation 2
higher education 2
american agricultural 2
percent urban 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
american agricultural land 2

Important Words


  1. adult
  2. age
  3. baby
  4. boomers
  5. bottom
  6. called
  7. canada
  8. care
  9. college
  10. combination
  11. completion
  12. consumers
  13. cost
  14. debt
  15. demographics
  16. distribution
  17. dollars
  18. dropping
  19. dwarfs
  20. economic
  21. economy
  22. education
  23. educational
  24. entered
  25. entitlements
  26. faster
  27. federal
  28. force
  29. gdp
  30. gift
  31. government
  32. grew
  33. growing
  34. growth
  35. headwind
  36. higher
  37. hour
  38. hours
  39. increased
  40. inflation
  41. labor
  42. living
  43. lot
  44. main
  45. males
  46. massively
  47. medical
  48. output
  49. overborrowing
  50. paying
  51. payments
  52. percentage
  53. person
  54. points
  55. prime
  56. problems
  57. productivity
  58. race
  59. rapid
  60. rate
  61. reached
  62. reasons
  63. recovery
  64. retirement
  65. rises
  66. share
  67. shrinking
  68. significant
  69. slower
  70. sluggish
  71. standard
  72. stop
  73. student
  74. system
  75. taxes
  76. today
  77. top
  78. transfer
  79. trillion
  80. truism
  81. turned
  82. women