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To: arthurus
When wages do not keep up with inflation you eventually get the major strikes, with the very highly paid as well as with the less well paid.

What wages do in relation to inflation is irrelevant. Wages move alongside per capita output. If per capita output stagnates, income stagnates. I understand they want a bigger piece of the pie. But that piece of the pie is extracted out of the incomes of people who buy gasoline and other refined products. If everyone struck, we'd be right back at our starting point, except with higher unemployment, lower relative wages and a less prosperous economy. Nations known for strikes don't generally grow their economies until they crush the unions responsible. Thatcher's demolition of British unions was a crucial step towards the rejuvenation of the British economy.

16 posted on 02/22/2015 6:44:51 PM PST by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)
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To: Zhang Fei

Dismantling the big unions is a plus for the economy. Meanwhile they and their strikes provide those signs of continuing inflation. I repeat, and Sowell and von Mises and Friedman all agree, that in an inflation wages are the prices that rises last. Throughout the 90s there was effectively a gentle deflation- prices continually declined as the production of goods and services rose at a higher rate than the money supply. There were not strikes beyond one or two at companies that themselves were in trouble. Wages did not increase much in nominal terms but earners were not stressed. Their money seemed to go a bit farther over time. They did not strike.


23 posted on 02/23/2015 5:45:40 AM PST by arthurus (it's true!)
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