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I mean, think about a plumber or a carpenter. Those jobs haven't really been more productive since the 1970s. Sure, PEX or nail guns are marginally better than

I mean, think about a plumber or a carpenter. Those jobs haven't really been more productive since the 1970s. Sure, PEX or nail guns are marginally better than previous methods, but not by that much. But since we still need plumbers or carpenters, they're more expensive than they were in the 1970s. Because of opportunity cost - imagine 1h of plumber's time in terms of TVs over 50 years. Because all opportunity cost is translated to cash, plumbers are more expensive now despite not being a growth sector. It's the economic equivalent to Amdahl's law in a sense. Things that can't be easily improved become economic bottlenecks (healthcare, education, construction).

trgn 2y ago
> Those jobs haven't really been more productive But their services aren't commodities. You're not paying a plumber to lay pipe. You pay a plumber to be in a dry house that doesn't smell like excrement. That value of course rises since demand rises. So of course, their labour value increases, since they're keeping the houses of a wealthier people free of odors. The same with education. The value of an education is the entry cost to participate in a productive economy. Of course that value is higher in more productive societies. Why should cost of an education drop, if its value rises? Again, it's not interchangeable in a global market, education is not a commodity. And I mean, imagine everybody's time in terms of cost of TVs to produce, not just those in unproductive industries. Isn't this just the effect of commodity prices dropping? Thanks for the explanation though, it starts to trickle, but there's nothing unintuitive about cost disease to me. It's just, well yeah, duh.