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Is Automation the Handmaiden of Inequality?
- Thread starter Banjo
- Start date
The inflation coincides with the Oil Crisis.
Not a coincidence.
Not a coincidence.
Yes, the article ignores the rampant inflation that was unleashed when we broke the Bretton Woods agreement in 1970. Workers tried to keep up with COLA's to adjust wages with inflation but the progressive tax system just moved them into higher and higher tax brackets that were not indexed for inflation...so their nominal wages declined...at the same time the employers faced with higher and higher wage demands began to borrow devaluing funds to invest in appreciating capital equipment that could eliminate skyrocketing labor and labor benefit costs. Of course real wages declined as the tax take increased and as investment was driven to eliminate, not augment, labor.
Bretton Woods didn't unleash anything, it simply acknowledged what was already happening.
Quote from Ed Breen:
The point is that the inflation started then.
No, it didn't.
It showed up in our measurements then, but that is not the same thing. Inflation was coming up hard, which is what forced the BW rearrangement to begin with.
You seem to have a strong and consistent tendency to confuse cause and effect.
The point of the comment was that there was accelerated deflation in the 1970's, during the time of the article and that the article did not address the effects of the inflation. I could argue with you about Bretton Woods but that would be a nit, and not on point. So, why don't you get back on point.