> Yeah, but Doug, you and I both know that the CPI is a joke now.
> Endlessly and tendentiously fiddled with to make sure that
> inflation-related benefits do NOT rise with actual inflation.
Doug replied:
It has its problems, but it's still telling us wages are going nowhere.
****************************
And labour time seems to have gone up:
"The U.S. employee put in an average 1,804 hours of work in 2006. That compared with 1,407.1 hours for the Norwegian worker and 1,564.4 for the French."
³Report: U.S. Workers Are Most Productive², Bradley S. Klapper, AP, September 3, 2007.
So, if output per worker has also gone up (in real money terms) and the forty hour work week is a thing of the past, then the rate of explotation has gone:
a. up b. way up c. through the roof! d. no opinion
Meanwhile vacation time?
Where's that?
And U.S. dollar denominated pensions, including Social Security with its $200 billion surplus this year (about enough to cover increased spending on the occupation of Iraq) with the USD tanking, pushing oil and other commodity prices higher....
Well, I'm most likely overposted now.
Happy Equinox all! I'm springing off to the Kings Park wildflower show.
Mike B)
Macht kaputt, was euch kaputt macht! http://www.iww.org/culture/official/preamble.shtml
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