>[mbs] ??????
>Which planet are you referring to?
>Or does "basically stagnant" mean "increasing"?
By all accounts wage increases should have been much more substantial in this tight labor market. You have to explain why they have indeed been relatively stagnant in this sense.
>[mbs] Actually the novel feature of the past 2-3 years
>is the gains at the bottom.
Gains in income or wages? If bottom 20% is enjoying greater income in absolute terms, this may only mean a move out of unemployment into employment where they are now producing surplus value for employers. This kind of income gain is not a problem for capital.
Wages may also increase if workers are provided more expensive capital to work with in this investment boom since capitalists now need continuous work effort to amortize the investment and pay higher wages for effort and care. But since workers are now producing more relative surplus value due to use of equipment, such a wage increase is quite the opposite of a problem for capitalists. It means a rise in the rate of exploitation.
I haven't seen much proof that businesses have been facing rising unit labor costs due to wage increases. Oil prices are now more important as a cost problem. I don't think Greenspan is responding to wage pressure, real or imagined or expected.
Even if the personal services that are demanded out of the rising revenue enjoyed by the capitalist class are leading to wage increases in this sector, that does not necessarily mean businesses are facing rising labor costs that are threatening profits in any real way.
Since you are the numbers man, I would hope that you would clarify what gains are you referring to: absolute and/or relative gains in *income* for the bottom 20 or 40% of the population or *wage* increases or *unit labor cost* increases or attentuation of the *rate of exploitation* (which is unobservable).
>
>[mbs] G-span is "choking borrowing"?
He doesn't want people to borrow too much on the basis of portfolio gains and spend like mad. Wasn't this Gspan's recent theory of consumption racing ahead of productivity gains that justified rate hike?
Yours, Rakesh