Posted on 02/03/2014 7:57:47 AM PST by Rusty0604
Edited on 02/03/2014 9:19:23 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
All four of those are heavily regulated by government, perhaps it’s time for another method. Food and energy tend to be volatile, but energy’s been fairly stable, gas is coming off of recent lows:
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_pri_sum_dcu_nus_m.htm
You can play around with this:
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=10.71&year1=1967&year2=2013
Starting in 1967 at $1.04 we’re now at $10.71 in 2013. If you use the deflator $1.04 is $7.25 in today’s dollars. So gas is up, but 1.04 in 2013 dollars is $74.70, so we can buy more gas with fewer dollars.
What’s happened to stagnate incomes is the demand by government that business pay for FICA and healthcare, plus other non-taxable perks. Healthcare costs are the biggest driver for employed full-time wage stagnation.
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