Anthony D'Costa wrote: > But that would mean (that is workers getting hit) there is no consumption > adjustment.
I guess I know what you mean by a "consumption adjustment." In any event, my question was framed (at least for me, since I didn't state it explicitly) with a concern about the trend of U.S. real wages, not about cyclical or immediate effects. The trend is for U.S. real wages to decline relative to labor productivity, but I see that as counteracted by cheap imported consumption goods during the last 13 years or so. It's true that a sudden rise in the price of imports would spur efforts to hike U.S. nominal wages. But the current political economy of this place (the class balance of power) suggests that it won't succeed to a large extent. The rise of the U.S. exporting and import-competing sectors due to revaluation of the Yuan (etc.) would create jobs, yes, but likely with wages of the sort prevailing under the "new normal" (i.e., inferior to those of decades past). -- Jim Devine "All science would be superfluous if the form of appearance of things directly coincided with their essence." -- KM _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
