Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Driving down the cost of manufacturing because of process standardization and automation brought down the cost of consumer goods, and labor's value. And quality as well.
Not really, the quality we're able to produce at scale is the best it's ever been in the world. The "quality of everything has been in decline" isn't due to advances in manufacturing but the economic factors that are present even without those advances. Rapid inflation over a relatively short period of time has forced everyone to desperately try and maintain close to their pre-inflation prices because workers didn't…
You might see little blips around major recessions, but prices go up, driven by inflation. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL
Fortunately the rate of change of CPI appears to have cooled off, but the best scenario is for it to track with the previous historical slope, which means prices are staying where they are and increasing at “comfortable” rates again.