Productivity growth - desperately needed magic elixir

Very spot on article in The Economist. Some snippets (emphasis mine) and comments:

- “productivity growth is the closest economics gets to a magic elixir, especially for ageing advanced economies”

- productivity depends on skills (my favorite: learning by doing – by moving around and up the ladder..), capital invested in tools (mostly IT) and the pace of “innovation” = the process of generating ideas that lead to new products and more efficient business practices

- “Almost every government in the rich world has a spanking new “innovation strategy” (my observation: and very little real action when it comes to taking existing technology in use – investments not taken efficiently into use)

-“But mostly such policies end up subsidizing well-connected industries.. followed by many examples of state supported failures

- “More important, the politicians’ current focus on fostering productivity growth via exciting high-tech breakthroughs misses a big part of what really drives innovation: the diffusion of better business processes (my favorite basic first building block: electronic invoicing = lower costs for all and better service) and management methods.”

- In Europe all this and the fact that “service markets are smaller than America’s, fragmented along national lines and heavily regulated.” leads to EU not catching up with the US - picture in: http://boharald.blogspot.com/2010/11/productivity-growth-magic-elixir.html

Very problematic with demographic trend meaning that much fewer will be at work (baking the welfare cake) and so many more eating it (and needing help with the eating from busy bakers..) picture in: http://boharald.blogspot.com/2010/11/productivity-growth-magic-elixir.html

Enough reasons for speeding up cutting administrative work and cost in half in enterprises and the public sector?