For a country to be rich—that is, for its average citizen to enjoy a high standard of living—it must depend on productivity, which is the ability to make more, better stuff with the labor it already has. Productivity itself depends on two factors: capital and ideas.

In a nutshell, growth rests on two building blocks: population and productivity. 1. Population determines how many workers a country will have. 2. Productivity, or output per worker, determines how much each worker earns.

four engines are consumers, businesses, government, and exports.

according to the Economist, is that a depression is a contraction in economic activity of at least 10 percent or lasting at least three years.

Harry Truman said “a recession [is] when your neighbor loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose yours.”

The share of the working-age population either working or looking for work is called the labor force participation rate.

Expenditure-based GDP. Total of all the money spent on stuff. 2. Income-based GDP. Total of all the money earned producing stuff.

fertility drops much below 2.1 babies per woman, the population will shrink unless offset by immigration.

productivity far less than his first. This is the law of diminishing returns.