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pjc50today at 2:36 PM1 replyview on HN

See "price stickiness" and what is simplified as "menu reprinting costs"; there's usually a cost associated with changing prices, and a cost associated with renegotiating prices for everything that's not being sold on a spot market. People cannot buy housing at spot, and while spot-labour pricing is definitely a thing for some services it's so socially destabilizing for anything skilled that most workforces operate on salary.

The reverse of this is that high inflation tends to cause a lot of strikes, because salaries refuse to go up and very high levels of inflation need salary repricing every month or even week.


Replies

igleriatoday at 3:10 PM

In Argentina I've learned from a young age that prices take the elevator, but salaries take the stairs.

It got old really quick having to negotiate with the boss every 6 months.