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Re:Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation by roenxi on Friday December 17, 2021 @02:05AM (#29588884)
Inflation doesn't - fundamentally - change the power balance between employers and employees. Market forces will cause the situation to find a fair market price. If job hopping can't get you better wages, then you probably don't have enough market power to resist if an employer flat-out cuts your pay.

Though to try and prevent misunderstandings - I do think inflation is bad for people who are paid wages. Market forces aren't perfect and "market price" is really a band of prices. Inflation pushes all workers to the low end of the band and means if anyone doesn't feel like negotiating they will be pushed in to a bad deal by default.

Re:Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation by pabs3 on Friday December 17, 2021 @02:48AM (#29589141)
Late last century inflation and then wages keeping up with that inflation enabled a generation of folks to pay off their first mortgages quite quickly.
Re:Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation by roenxi on Friday December 17, 2021 @06:50AM (#29590967)
That is saying a lot less than you might think. Again, consider that the banks employ actuaries - they understand inflation a lot better than the people borrowing the money. They didn't let themselves be the losers here.

Inflation doesn't change the actual power balance between different actors, it does make the situation more complex and harder to keep up with. It doesn't create real wealth and it is not responsible for a wealth transfer to wage earners. The idea just lacks a mechanism - for the wealth to come from employers or businesses they have to be ignorant, altruistic and disinterested in money. That seems unlikely. Ditto most other actors. Changing value of money favours people who can continuously adjust to it which isn't a typical wage earner.

If a generation gets something for free, they got it from somewhere else. Who lost out here? Why did it need to be inflation to make that happen? If they didn't get it for free, it is unclear why inflation would be necessary in the story instead of incidental.

Re:Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation by skywal_l on Friday December 17, 2021 @02:59AM (#29589221)
Absolutely but this also assumes a fairly "elastic" housing market able to absorb the demand. I am not sure the market is still able to do that with the NYMBYsm and malthusianism around new housing. In high tension area, the price could quickly increase faster than general inflation. I believe CPI does not include house prices.
Re:Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation by mellavora on Friday December 17, 2021 @03:31AM (#29589454)
Risk is that rising inflation raises mortgage rates which makes housing unaffordable. You might be able to continue paying your mortgage because you locked in a low rate, so not see this as a problem (free house!)-- but if for some reason you want or need to sell you might find it more financially challenging than anticipated.
Re:Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation by jnwatson on Friday December 17, 2021 @03:58AM (#29589631)
If you timed it right. Several of my friends’ parents had 18% APR mortgages.
Re:Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation by refurb on Friday December 17, 2021 @03:26AM (#29589413)
It allowed a very small slice of the population to do that. You basically had to take on a loan prior to the run up in interest rates. If you were born in 1950 you were fucked since rates had skyrocketed by the time you were 20.

Just like millennials love to claim boomers had it easy, it was a small slice of the pie that benefited.