Thus the Financial Times today. “Long-term prosperity depends on the capacity of every American to increase output constantly,” explains the newspaper. “Can they?” No, they cannot. Robert Solow, who got a Nobel prize for his work on economic growth in 1987, has established around the turn of the new millennium that American labor productivity is in long-term decline. In Solow’s theory, there are three sources of economic growth: technological change, capital, and labor. In spite of technological change, which is still gathering pace in some sectors of the national economy, there is no reason to believe that labor’s contribution to economic growth will turn around any time soon. Capital’s contribution is not fairing much better, either. In short, there is no productivity puzzle here. America faces long-term decline. And Americans had better appreciate the consequences as soon as possible. For a model of things to come, they have Europe right across the puddle. Decline can be good fun, too.