The wages are too damn high!

A phase-transition in U.S. labor markets could mean wages are the prices that just won't cool

Random Walk revisits wage gains and takes comfort that we’re still not getting a raise, but ponders whether this new-normal is really anything like we’ve seen before. Also, houses, cars, oil, China and all the things that will decide our fates, except ChatGPT. None of that, except at the very end (even though it’s super-cool).

Things we think

The wages are too damn high!

No workers, mo’ problems

Everyone now agrees that we have a people shortage, driven by an aging population, a pull-forward of retirement, and well, things that put your chin on your fist and get you to wondering🤔:

It’s hard to see how it gets solved any time soon, absent something shocking, like significant structural changes to Disability and/or Social Security that would force people back into the workforce, for lack of a better alternative.

The near term implications of the people shortage are tight labor markets, i.e. more jobs than people to fill them. That means, at some level, that work is left undone, but it als…