Velshi and Ruhle, in politically spun news, have once in a while over several weeks been questioning the health of the stock market, reporting that some economists and knowledgeable players see the current phase of our nine year old bull market as a bubble, a rerun of the scene just before the great crash of 2008.
(But where are the bad mortgages?)
Today they pointed out that we are in the region economists think of as full employment, meaning that apart from people changing jobs or voluntarily not working pretty much everybody who wants a job and can be relied upon to do it is working.
And when you are at full employment and a boom continues employers compete for workers by raising wages and benefits.
But that isn't happening to the extent expected or wanted.
Wages and benefits are rising, but more slowly and less than they would have in the past, and that has been the story pretty much throughout this bull market.
Their explanation in part is that automation has been enabling productivity rises without much rise in the market for labor, and little or none for the least skilled.
That part makes sense.
Too, they concede the Sanders/Trump claim that globalization means that importation of cheap goods from overseas has prevented demand from driving up US domestic production of those same or similar goods and thus pushing up US wages.
While that is true, as well, it doesn't mean protectionist policies would not drive up prices more than wages, or that it would not drive up prices paid by Peter while driving up wages paid only to Paul
The last part is that interest rates are too low and are causing a mere bubble in stock values.
That part is doubtful, since too low interest rates would cause notable inflation, and we aren't having that.
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