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Bingo. In a capitalist society, the better explanation is almost always an economic one. It boggles my mind that so many people find it difficult to understand
by coliveira 9y ago
Bingo. In a capitalist society, the better explanation is almost always an economic one. It boggles my mind that so many people find it difficult to understand this simple concept.
Not only wages are stagnant, but the population is under high increases in housing and health care costs, which are not accounted in official inflation. Add this to the reduced welfare state, and you have the perfect recipe for this situation.
- vonmoltke 9y ago> Not only wages are stagnant, but the population is under high increases in housing and health care costs, which are not accounted in official inflation. The US CPI does account for those, and the CPI changes are the "official" inflation rate.
- freejulian 9y agoYes, rents are certainly included in CPI. For me, it's more a question of weighting. When it's not uncommon to find people spending 50% of their income on rent, are rents being appropriately weighted in the CPI?
- prostoalex 9y agoWhy did the "experiences" (travel, dining out) and "digital media" (software, media purchases, data plans) grow substantially, as the article mentions?
- coliveira 9y agoThis is more a question of replacing some expenses than a real expansion in wages. For example, dining out is a necessity in the modern family because women are required to work in order to survive. This was not the case up to the 70s and even into the 80s. And online purchases are just replacing previous purchases like CDs, DVDs, movie theaters, cable, fixed phone line, etc., that have been eliminated by technology or made expensive for current budgets.