12-12-2011, 11:55 AM
(12-12-2011, 10:50 AM)Jester Wrote: No. Wages are determined by marginal productivity. In the aggregate, people do not get paid more than they produce - this is impossible, else, what are they being paid in?
The extra production compensates, goods for goods and services for services, for the lost "cheap" labour. Nobody gets poorer when the poor get richer. Some goods which are most easily produced by extremely poor people and which are difficult to mechanize (clothes?) will get more expensive, but everything else will get cheaper.
-Jester
Look at this globally. Our consumption the west is so over the top only because we have the ability to get stuff for very very cheap.
In poor countries labour laws and environmental protection are non existant. Once people get richer they will want to have a goof life and they will start worrying about having clean drinking water or air to breath.
This is of course all increased by the running out of resources.
What I see that is gettng more expensive:
-food
-oil
-any commodity
-clothes
-gadgets
-energy