patrick.net

So consumers will have to pay less for stuff because of lower labor costs.

It is a two way street.

Peter P says

So consumers will have to pay less for stuff because of lower labor costs.

Only in Conservative Storyland.

Here in the real world:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CP

It is strange.

To many people, inflation is bad, except for home prices and labor costs.

What gives?

Wages that circulate among goods & service providers is how healthy economies work.

Incomes being siphoned OUT of the paycheck economy by non-laborers -- real estate rents, health care rents, resource rents, our $500B+/yr trade deficit, and corporate stockholders and bondholders -- kill velocity within the paycheck economy and eventually cause everything to collapse.

"Labor costs" is how everyone actually makes a living, LOL.

Not that wages need to be high per se, but everything needs to be in balance, money that leaves the paycheck economy has to be put back or the paycheck earners will run out of money.

Our system is far, far out of balance now, with the 1% and 5% claiming an ever-increasing share of income, which is, in the end, has to come entirely from the product of laborers -- every dime's worth of wealth in this country has to be created by labor. But laborers are seeing less and less of the value of their output.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=dEY

Get it now?

Just because wages "inflate" doesn't mean that consumer prices have to go up, either.

We could liquidate the rentiers, instead.

Right to work states also don't have state income taxes.
Who needs Unions to demand higher wages and a higher quality of life?
That was supposed to be Mitt Romney's job.

CaptainShuddup says

Right to work states also don't have state income taxes.

This is patently false. There are 23 right-to-work states and 9 income tax free states. (7 totally free, 2 tax only interest and dividend income)

Not all 9 income tax free states are right-to-work, either, Washington, Alaska, and New Hampshire are income tax free but are not right-to-work.

How can anyone look at a graph of corporate profits after tax and union membership (HINT: Real Corporate Profits are soaring while Union membership is falling) and not see the problem.