• 2 Posts
  • 232 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 25th, 2023

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  • Price increases seem to take long residence in people’s minds. Prices are noticeably way higher than in 2019. Whether wage increases make up for that is kind of beside the point, psychologically. Collectively, big price hikes are traumatic.

    Economists correctly talk about inflation as a rate of price increase, and they correctly consider real wages as a useful metric of well-being. But economists are academics and we use the word “inflation” in a colloquial sense, in a politicized real world, where it means “I have noticed that prices rose is recent memory and every time I go to the store I feel cheated.”

    But to be clear, it’s not in my top 10 either (mine starts with climate, democracy, and freedom). Just sharing how I see the disconnect on inflation as a hot topic.


  • I know this is a meme community and probably not the right place to ask. But the meme prompted my question and I promise this is a good faith question.

    If labor is entitled to all it creates (i agree! In principle), who determines what that is? For example - someone operating an injection molding machine might “create” a million doodads in a year. But the machine and the material and the electricity and the QA of those doodads are all created/done by someone else. How is that divvied up?

    Personally I am leaning toward UBI funded by a capital tax, along with a functional labor market, as kind of a solution here. But I’d appreciate any easy-to-digest references.