Negative productivity

Here’s a headline for the ages “The partial US federal government shutdown has cost the Pentagon at least 600 million dollars worth of productivity”.

But they don’t day how much they would have had to spend to get that ‘600 million dollars worth of Productivity’. Maybe it was $500m, or even $800m, but more likely $600m.

That is, they spent $600m and they probably have no idea what economic benefit it brings but its almost certainly less than than the amount they spent, i.e. they have negative productivity.

The evidence is simply that the US government is getting further into debt, so either their spending has negative productivity or, if positive, the benefits are ending up in private pockets.

I suspect they have negative productivity AND the benefits are ending up in private pockets.