Quote from pitz:
My income's been increasing extremely rapidly because of what's been going on. Its all about positioning.
If you didn't see the writing on the wall in 2000 when oil was $15/barrel, and every moron and their cousin was racing to buy a SUV and monster house (monster house = high energy costs)..
Pitz, I'm glad someone else has common sense on this issue. My car has great gas mileage (affordable too). I live in a reasonable condo with very low assessments, 5 minutes away from work.
My salary is increasing at around 10% a year. These people out there who claim there is mass inflation in everything, except salaries, have a really confusing view of economics and inflation.
With the exception of the working poor -- minimum wage employees who are getting gang raped due to the recession, weak job market, and super high food inflation -- anyone with a skill that is in demand should be benefiting from higher salaries. At end of the day, inflation or no inflation, it's still about supply and demand.
The demand for my current employment is driven by large capital projects by government, utilities, and oil and gas companies. All three are doing quiet well right now. If two of the three fail, I'll still survive. But since it's all three, I'm doing well and better than inflation salary growth.
Say you're a real estate agent and the demand for your employment is strictly driven from real estate transactions of overpriced homes, I can see how that may be a problem. If Realtors were smart during the good financial years, they've would have branched out to become a licensed appraiser or home inspector to become more versatile in this economy. An appraiser has business regardless of the status of the housing market: In the good times they appraiser for banks when people want to buy, in the bad times they appraiser for banks when people are being foreclosed upon. Not to mention during divorce, bankruptcy, and refinancing. Too many Realtors were too lazy on their ass to plan for the future. Now they're paying the price.