I'm not convinced that lowering wages actually decreases price of goods enough to compensate for the lower wages - for that to happen, the money needs to cycle

I'm not convinced that lowering wages actually decreases price of goods enough to compensate for the lower wages - for that to happen, the money needs to cycle all the way through the economy and back to the workers without ever being "leaked". Depending on the entire economy to not break sounds like a way-too-large-scope solution. Things that could ruin the effect: 1. Any sort of natural monopoly 2. The "free market for senators" letting a corporation buy itself an un-natural monopoly through regulatory capture (either unnecessary regulation, or refusal to create necessary regulation) 3. Any sort of repeated irrationality in human nature that can be systematically exploited 4. Workers with lower wages purchasing less in the interim, resulting in fewer purchases and higher prices due to less economy of scale, resulting in fewer purchases and less economy of scale, etc etc 5. This probably overlaps with several of the above, but market distortions as a byproduct of initiatives to "create jobs", which is something everyone (as in both industrialists and working class) wants/needs to keep the economy afloat. IMO this is a result of people refusing to acknowledge that past a certain point, demand for wages is inflexible and will be paid, and if market mechanisms don't deliver then political forces will.