Pound sign (was Re: the Telephone Test)

[T. William Wells]

In article <24247 at agate.BERKELEY.EDU> ked at garnet.berkeley.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth) writes:
: >>Noting that the words 'peso' and 'lira' both mean 'pound',  I'd say that
: >>those of us whose currency is not named after a unit of weight are
: >>the ones with the strange units.
:
: Yen means circular, presumably after the shape of coins. If you find
: yourself in possession of a large quantity of yen and are repulsed by
: having money not named after a unit of weight, I'll be happy to releave
: you of your burden, and I won't charge you for doing so. :)
:
: I'll take the "strange" yen AND THE ECONOMY BEHIND IT over peso, lira,
: pounds, or dollars and the economies associated with each.

There you go, spouting nonsense over the net. According to _The
Economist_, 5 May 1989, p.61:

GDP per         person  person  hour
			employed worked
USA             150     140     130
Canada          140     130     115
W. Germany      110     115     105
Japan           105     95      65
France          105     120     115

	These figures are for 1986 and are approximate as they are
	taken from a bar-like chart. Britain is taken as 100, Italian
	figures are left out due to the uncertainties in the hidden
	economy.

The numbers tell the tale: by any of these measures, the USA was the
most productive of the countries; Japan was either the least
productive or the second least.

Why then do the Japanese do so well in spite of their low
productivity? Well, though they have low productivity per head, they
work more hours. Furthermore, while most of their economy is
amazingly inefficient, their manufacturing sector is anything but.

Note that I'm not putting the Japanese down; the growth figures for
some sectors of their economy are rather impressive. (No, I don't
have the figures handy.) But the idealization of the Japanese economy
that one sees so often is just plain bullshit.

Followups have been directed to talk.politics.misc.

---
Bill                            { uunet | novavax } !twwells!bill