The “jobs” report came in “better than expected”. Pay rates are also rising. (the local Mickey D’s that was offering $16/hr a few weeks ago, went to $16.25, and is now at $16.50) The market is flying this morning.
The thought crosses my mind: what inputs to the economy are subject to price manipulation by the government, to tamp down inflation?
Prices of imported raw materials and manufactured goods are set by the foreign producers. Using monitary policy to push the dollar higher vs foreign currencies, may make imports seem cheaper, but also make US exports uncompetitive.
The one input the government can manipulate, because it is 100% locally sourced, is labor. Want to trim inflation? Strangle real estate. Strangle auto sales. Put millions of people out of work, so the “JCs” can cut pay.
Every “jobs” report that comes in hot, is fuel for more rate increases. The “wise” keep assuring themselves the Fed will reduce the rate of rate increases. Someone is going to be disappointed.
Cut tariffs. Would reduce consumer prices and also subsidies to producers from the government.
Allow foreign-flag ships to carry goods that only U.S. flag ships are currently allowed to carry. (Reduce shipping costs and ease supply chain bottlenecks.)
Even easier than that. Cut over time and resources to Border Patrol and Immigration. More illegal immigrants almost immediately. No need for bureaucracies and as a bonus, they can easily exploited and used as a foil for Union Organization
Cheers
Qazulight (Ethics? We don’t need no stinkin’ Ethics!)
The IRA the more we produce the more of a deflationary force our manufacturing becomes.
More immigrants would be bad for our economy. Powell has said he wants labor rates to rise. I get that does not play well with retirees. But yours is not the national reality.
When employers are having trouble recruiting and filling their positions, more immigration is a logical solution. Manpower shortage does contribute to inflation.
Of course, its about admitting people with needed job skills. Not so much the poor with no job skills.
Yes, workers always complain about competition holding down wages. We need to hit the right balance. We need more than we have. But some will complain no matter what.
Powell has firmly stated the FED wants higher labor rates. Just not so high the labor rates cause spiraling inflation. As of now the inflation is not spiraling as feared on this board ten months ago.
There are a lot of businesses in the US that are wasting resources as barely profitable or running at a loss. Those people are welcome of course to try their hand but we need more efficient businesses to succeed.
We do not need to feed the losers with cheap labor to keep them alive.
Uber is it making a profit yet? Why keep it in business? Just to use someone to go to the airport? All of those drivers could get better work. The list of dead companies using labor needlessly matters more. Uber drives are making terrible money.
Why do people do that? Why are some people money wise or job wise etc…and others not wise at all? It is what it is but the country does not need Uber and its ilk.
That is not going to be true further down this road. The economies of scale will be kicking in. Negotiating input costs, build out of infrastructure, greater R&D budgets etc will all become deflationary forces.
Remember the IRA is only partially in affect this year. It comes fully into affect next year.
Seeking Alpha is guessing instead of studying. There is a huge bias. It is nonsense.
Yes! One of the big current issues is that we’ve hired many millions of new employees this year (and late last year), and so far there is hardly any increased productivity from them (as measured by GDP divided by hours of labor). Hopefully, it is due to training issues, but I would have expected by now, since many of them are already in their jobs for a full year, that we would have already seen a jump in productivity.
