Re: mining as a whole was severely reduced in the last 2+ weeks?
In fact that's a terrible waste of energy/resources! 
In fact that's a cost of security and P2P currency system. It's daily cost is 66000 USD. Significant part of it goes to electric power industry.Last 20 blocks had 46 transactions per block in average. So 1 transaction costs 10 USD!
Yes, it's quite ineffective right now.