Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Fed plans to sharply boost unemployment

cbsnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–227 of 227 posts

Re: The Fed plans to sharply boost unemployment

#221

Post by lamontcg »

thunky wrote: post #180
paulmd wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Inflation-adjusting the nominal rise of prices that are causing inflation just hides the inflation. You can't analyze it that way Actually you can not just analyze but neutralize it that way. If everyone agrees to a wage that is indexed to inflation, and then starts numerating prices in that inflation-indexed currency... suddenly you don't have inflation anymore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plano_Real Maybe the U…

Yeah, just because wages are a component of inflation doesn't mean we can't talk about them in real terms. Same for housing, also a component of inflation: if house prices rise/inflate 2% while inflation is 10%, it's fair to say that housing declined 8% in real terms.

You can talk about wages in real terms in order to see what their impact is on the actual buying power of the average worker.

But if you're trying specifically to discuss and talk about the wage component of inflation it is nonsense to talk about that in real terms. Adjusting to eliminate the effect of inflation on wages is not the way to measure wage inflation. It should be intuitively obvious that is nonsense.

Re: The Fed plans to sharply boost unemployment

#222

Post by jibe »

socialismisok wrote: post #48
jibe wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labor isn’t gaining power now, or else you’d see wages gains greater than inflation. Labor is losing to inflation.

It's gained some ground with movements like the $15 now movement in Seattle. It can be the case it has gained but gained unevenly.

In aggregate, wage gains are behind inflation. In a country of 330 million, it will always be uneven. Everything is uneven at scale.

Re: The Fed plans to sharply boost unemployment

#223

Post by thunky »

lamontcg wrote: post #221
thunky wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, just because wages are a component of inflation doesn't mean we can't talk about them in real terms. Same for housing, also a component of inflation: if house prices rise/inflate 2% while inflation is 10%, it's fair to say that housing declined 8% in real terms.

You can talk about wages in real terms in order to see what their impact is on the actual buying power of the average worker. But if you're trying specifically to discuss and talk about the wage component of inflation it is nonsense to talk about that in real terms. Adjusting to eliminate the effect of inflation on wages is not the way to measure wage inflation. It should be intuitively obvious that is nonsense.

I guess I'm not thinking like an economist then. It's still not clear to me why "wage inflation is the one that has the Fed worried".

We've seen absurd asset inflation (equities, housing, crypto!) due to easy money, and the Fed just sat on their hands. So now, wages are going up and workers are finally getting a raise? No, because their wage increases aren't keeping up with their higher expenses. But wages are going up, in nominal terms, so now the Fed jumps up and rings the alarm?

Re: The Fed plans to sharply boost unemployment

#224

Post by evancox100 »

daniel-cussen wrote: post #187
pitaj wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "corporations are just greedy" thing makes zero sense. If it's just greed, then why have they just recently started? It's not like they all got together and decided to raise prices.

Right so a few years's previous it was more about expanding market-share with lower prices. Then they saw employee's not getting their lives ruined when they got fired, like not getting the phone calls from that employee begging for his job back at half the wage, meaning they got told "I quit" way more, in great part because of Trump's unique $1500 check. That was what did it. Allowed a cascade of savings that freed…

Real “precious bodily fluids” vibes [0].

In all seriousness though you may want to see a therapist or psychiatrist, or just like talk to someone you trust.

[0] https://youtu.be/N1KvgtEnABY

Re: The Fed plans to sharply boost unemployment

#225

Post by dragonwriter »

nilsbunger wrote: post #66

Inflation is high because demand exceeds supply. You have to reduce demand to match the available supply. Interest rates are the main tool to do that. This is true even if the ultimate cause is supply chain issues.

> Inflation is high

Current inflation has been about 0 in the last two monthly reports.

The headline 12-month trailing figure is still high because “12-month trailing”.

Re: The Fed plans to sharply boost unemployment

#226

Post by daniel-cussen »

evancox100 wrote: post #224
daniel-cussen wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right so a few years's previous it was more about expanding market-share with lower prices. Then they saw employee's not getting their lives ruined when they got fired, like not getting the phone calls from that employee begging for his job back at half the wage, meaning they got told "I quit" way more, in great part because of Trump's unique $1500 check. That was what did it. Allowed a cascade of savings that freed…

Real “precious bodily fluids” vibes [0]. In all seriousness though you may want to see a therapist or psychiatrist, or just like talk to someone you trust. [0] https://youtu.be/N1KvgtEnABY

I do see a psychiatrist.

So that movie is also paid for by Coca-Cola, make the objector to fluorine look like a crazy monster, in order to undermine objectors in general. It's a straw man. It's an inb4. It's yet another confession.

Re: The Fed plans to sharply boost unemployment

#227

Post by edmundsauto »

prepend wrote: post #218
edmundsauto wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potentially; another possible outcome is that $60 is passed to ownership and $20 passed to consumers. Companies these days are pretty aware of how price conscious their customers are - they aren't going to lower pricing based on cost unless there is strong reason to (competition is the only one I can think of... but it looks to me like companies compete less these days due to a variety of factors, including brand loy…

That’s possible but due to the great invisible hands that created an opportunity for competition to come in with a lower price. There are many factors so it really depends. But automation has really benefitted customers through lower prices and higher quality so it’s hard to expect that these robots would result in owners pocketing the savings over previous robots.

Automation has made cars higher quality, but I'm not sure it has made clothing better, or food. What it does do is create the cheapest options possible, edging away on quality to have a cost reduction. Whether consumers benefit from favoring quantity over quality is not clear, but "consumers" are also "workers" and are harmed in that way by automation too.

It's complicated.

Post reply on HN