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M2 adjusted wages over the last 50 years paints a grim picture


Ogaden
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What I did:  I adjusted the US M2 money supply as the rate of inflation, as an index peaking in April (so relative value of dollars compared to the total money supply).

 

I then adjusted this against the average wages of private employees in the United States.

 

It's not pretty: https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=4sNt

 

fredgraph.png?g=4sNt

 

In 2016 dollars, your average American factory worker in 1964 made about 80 dollars an hour.  The reason why things don't seem like this is that 50 years of improvements in efficiency, vast outsourcing and labor costs collapsing due to wage shrinkage, things cost a lot less today than in 1964.  A new car in 1964 cost $3,500, which sounds cheap until you realize in 2016 dollars, that's $112,000.  The average price of a new car was over a hundred grand and almost everyone could afford one.

 

The thing is, efficiency making things cheaper doesn't apply to everything.  Food for instance, or housing, or minerals and metals.

Edited by Ogaden
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The value of the dollar has shrunk internationally. The causes range from our increase in deficit AND debt. It is also a cause of value in trade and fiat currency does lose its value with the combination of the latter is adjusted to the factor.

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The trend really began in 1973. Until then productivity and wages were in lock step. After 1973 productivity continued it's historic trajectory to double in 30 years, while wages have only increased 9% in that time. Productivity is effectively the creation of money. Which has doubled, but wages have not.

 

The events of 1973 that caused this? The demise of the US auto industry and the auto worker following the oil embargo. And, Congress officially became accountable to the lobbyists that year with the introduction of public votes.

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The value of the dollar has shrunk internationally. The causes range from our increase in deficit AND debt. It is also a cause of value in trade and fiat currency does lose its value with the combination of the latter is adjusted to the factor.

Not really, the dollar is still very stable. It's funny because libertarians always go with the "the government keeps printing so much money, it's gonna increase inflation!" line but the inflation rate has been largely static, when is this catastrophic inflation gonna occur?

Edited by Andrezj Kolarov
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without arab oil theorise of petrol would be almost unaffordable.

but about this.

gross purchasing power has increased.

which means workers have less but we believe we have more because we can go and by a shirt for £2 and dispose of it without feeling sorry 

Caliph of The Caliphate of Arabia. Caliph of the Islamic State of Arabia. Principle of The Principality of Chechnya. Grand Emir of The Emirate of The Caucus. Emperor of the Empire of Persia. Sultan of The Sultanates of Turkey and The Crimea. Czar of the Tsardom of The Balkans. Archon of The Archonate of Greece. Supreme Consul of The Consulate of Italy. Shah of The Shahdom Of Khorason

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without arab oil theorise of petrol would be almost unaffordable.

but about this.

gross purchasing power has increased.

which means workers have less but we believe we have more because we can go and by a shirt for £2 and dispose of it without feeling sorry 

we should stop trading and launch an invasion of saudi arabia to stop human rights abuse. :)

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Not really, the dollar is still very stable. It's funny because libertarians always go with the "the government keeps printing so much money, it's gonna increase inflation!" line but the inflation rate has been largely static, when is this catastrophic inflation gonna occur?

 

Yeah about that, the official inflation rate is very amusing fiction.  Real inflation averages about 5% a year, with peaks of 10% or more. https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=4t0x

 

fredgraph.png?g=4t0x

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This is a very weird method of adjusting for inflation. Don't most economists use M3? Like I agree on your inequality point in the USA, the minimum wage has been eroded by inflation, but your stuff about GDP seems weird to my brother who studies economics.

As you sow, so shall you reap

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the chinese are stealing our jobs as are muslims...borders need to be closed and nafta needs to be abolished!

It's hilarious that conservatives, so-called believers in the "free-market", are also the biggest opponent of free movement of labor. Also if Americans got all those manufacturing jobs back from China, the price of goods would skyrocket because US wages are so much higher than Chinese wages. So much hypocrisy.

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When I started driving gas was $1.08 a gallon, minimum wage was $5.15 and $30 bought you enough food to make it a week or more.

 

Worked at a security place making $12.80 an hour and felt like a king, sirloin steaks every night, road trips on the weekend, I fueled my raging gambling addiction and still had money left over to pay bills.

 

Now though it seems like it takes two people working just to make the bills and you're lucky if you've got more than noodles to eat for the week and enough gas to make it into work.

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Ask not for lesser burdens, only for broader shoulders.

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Not really, the dollar is still very stable. It's funny because libertarians always go with the "the government keeps printing so much money, it's gonna increase inflation!" line but the inflation rate has been largely static, when is this catastrophic inflation gonna occur?

Its amazing what quantitative easing does to show stability on paper. 

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  • 1 year later...

When I started driving gas was $1.08 a gallon, minimum wage was $5.15 and $30 bought you enough food to make it a week or more.

 

Worked at a security place making $12.80 an hour and felt like a king, sirloin steaks every night, road trips on the weekend, I fueled my raging gambling addiction and still had money left over to pay bills.

 

Now though it seems like it takes two people working just to make the bills and you're lucky if you've got more than noodles to eat for the week and enough gas to make it into work.

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You know, Back in my days....

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The trend really began in 1973. Until then productivity and wages were in lock step. After 1973 productivity continued it's historic trajectory to double in 30 years, while wages have only increased 9% in that time. Productivity is effectively the creation of money. Which has doubled, but wages have not.

 

The events of 1973 that caused this? The demise of the US auto industry and the auto worker following the oil embargo. And, Congress officially became accountable to the lobbyists that year with the introduction of public votes.

 

Deindustrialization and the catch-up effect probably played a bigger, long-term role than the oil embargo. 

 

In the grand tradition of baby-boomer white suburbanites swinging the vote for a dumbass because said dumbass invoked nostalgia to a better time, I'm just going to add that the American middle class in the 50s and 60s was built on the ashes of a world war that destroyed the advanced nations of the world. You want to go back to a time where the average American's purchasing power made everyone live like kings? Have good ol' Donnie start a world war and blow up the competition. China's a good start. Germany should be next in line. Japan is also prime-time. South Korea too. 

 

The American economy hasn't been in decline since 1970, the rest of the world's economy is on the rise. 

It's a useful mental exercise. Through the years, many thinkers have been fascinated by it. But I don't enjoy playing. It was a game that was born during a brutal age when life counted for little. Everyone believed that some people were worth more than others. Kings. Pawns. I don't think that anyone is worth more than anyone else. Chess is just a game. Real people are not pieces. You can't assign more value to some of them and not others. Not to me. Not to anyone. People are not a thing that you can sacrifice. The lesson is, if anyone who looks on to the world as if it was a game of chess, deserves to lose.

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Deindustrialization and the catch-up effect probably played a bigger, long-term role than the oil embargo. 

 

In the grand tradition of baby-boomer white suburbanites swinging the vote for a dumbass because said dumbass invoked nostalgia to a better time, I'm just going to add that the American middle class in the 50s and 60s was built on the ashes of a world war that destroyed the advanced nations of the world. You want to go back to a time where the average American's purchasing power made everyone live like kings? Have good ol' Donnie start a world war and blow up the competition. China's a good start. Germany should be next in line. Japan is also prime-time. South Korea too. 

 

The American economy hasn't been in decline since 1970, the rest of the world's economy is on the rise. It can and is both, If you can't get corporations to pay taxes or back into a proper level of progressive taxation as with Eisenhower or even not actually raising the minimum wage, just bringing it's real dollar value back most people would be happy as F. It would also be more than any proposed minimum wage yet posted and all it does is adjust for inflation. They're willing to work for the same amount of wealth and corporations are either well supplied with the funds necessary to do this or could simply compensate further by restricting boardmember and executive bonuses, golden parachutes and salaries.

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Deindustrialization and the catch-up effect probably played a bigger, long-term role than the oil embargo. 

 

In the grand tradition of baby-boomer white suburbanites swinging the vote for a dumbass because said dumbass invoked nostalgia to a better time, I'm just going to add that the American middle class in the 50s and 60s was built on the ashes of a world war that destroyed the advanced nations of the world. You want to go back to a time where the average American's purchasing power made everyone live like kings? Have good ol' Donnie start a world war and blow up the competition. China's a good start. Germany should be next in line. Japan is also prime-time. South Korea too. 

 

The American economy hasn't been in decline since 1970, the rest of the world's economy is on the rise. 

Then how come every economies in debt and everyone's facing inflation? (I'm not a economy know-it-all just to warn you) I think it's because of the structure of the World Bank's and how money can be literally pulled out of your as without the resources nor labour to match it.

 

 

restricting boardmember and executive bonuses, golden parachutes and salaries.

 

In a perfect world....... :sheepy:

Edited by Pylon69
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Then how come every economies in debt and everyone's facing inflation? (I'm not a economy know-it-all just to warn you) I think it's because of the structure of the World Bank's and how money can be literally pulled out of your as without the resources nor labour to match it.

 

In a perfect world....... :sheepy:

 

Actually, the United States is at a rare point in economic history. Traditional economists say that inflation and unemployment are inversely related. Meaning, if the unemployment goes up, inflation goes down and vice versa. That didn't hold up in the age of "Stagflation," in the 1970s, when inflation and unemployment were both high (Thus, the talk about the American economy in freefall since then). But oddly enough, the opposite is now happening. We have incredibly low unemployment and inflation, contrary to what our president may say. Any lower and we will be in the 1950s when the government was contemplating insuring every American had a job. I think the gov wants to raise those rates soon though. 

 

I only know basic economics. I'm a historian by trade, but I found my economics course in college to be very useful, supplementing my understanding of history. I highly recommend a class, it's actually a fun thought puzzle to explain current events. 

It's a useful mental exercise. Through the years, many thinkers have been fascinated by it. But I don't enjoy playing. It was a game that was born during a brutal age when life counted for little. Everyone believed that some people were worth more than others. Kings. Pawns. I don't think that anyone is worth more than anyone else. Chess is just a game. Real people are not pieces. You can't assign more value to some of them and not others. Not to me. Not to anyone. People are not a thing that you can sacrifice. The lesson is, if anyone who looks on to the world as if it was a game of chess, deserves to lose.

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Then how come every economies in debt (that's actually pretty normal and with interest rates currently we're actually making money with our current debt level) and everyone's facing inflation? (I'm not a economy know-it-all just to warn you) I think it's because of the structure of the World Bank's and how money can be literally pulled out of your as without the resources nor labour to match it.

 

In a perfect world....... :sheepy:We could do it if we wanted to. The corporations involved can afford even a minimum wage adjusted for inflation from when it stopped doing so to now by simply reducing salaries, bonuses and golden parachutes among corporate officers and would still be disgustingly, abusively wealthy.

 

 

Actually, the United States is at a rare point in economic history. Traditional economists say that inflation and unemployment are inversely related. Meaning, if the unemployment goes up, inflation goes down and vice versa. That didn't hold up in the age of "Stagflation," in the 1970s, when inflation and unemployment were both high (Thus, the talk about the American economy in freefall since then). But oddly enough, the opposite is now happening. We have incredibly low unemployment and inflation, contrary to what our president may say. Any lower and we will be in the 1950s when the government was contemplating insuring every American had a job. I think the gov wants to raise those rates soon though. I don't think it'll work without returning to the wage levels and corporate and income tax rates from that period. In real 2017 dollars, without even considering a hike and just adjusting for inflation the current minimum federal wage should be $11.63[1] and, again, that's without any increase except inflation.

 

I only know basic economics. I'm a historian by trade, but I found my economics course in college to be very useful, supplementing my understanding of history. I highly recommend a class, it's actually a fun thought puzzle to explain current events. 

 

[1] https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

Edited by ComradeMilton

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Raising the inflation rates to match inflation is kind of retarded. Though you could say that's how natural animals have evolved. Deer gets fast----> Cheetah gets faster------> Deer gets fastest-----> Cheetah gets fasterest! Yeah it just seems retarded since all of this is artificially created, in a way. I've heard that the best idea to fix the economy is for people to have to rough it for a few years. It's a long term fix and sopose to work. But for obvious reason's people would rather slap a bandage on a gushing wound.

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