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The Austrian school of economics says that deflation seems to have a positive effect on everyone and I would tend to agree. Inflationary economics seems to really be bad all around except for the government and central banks. In a In Keynesian/inflationary economics Goods and services tend to go up in price while the wages employees are earning go down in value every year, thus the need for employers to give out standard for living increases. In a Austrian/deflationary economy there would be no need for a standard of living increase as the amount of money they were making on a yearly or hourly basis would increase in its purchasing power each year.
Which brings me to my question:
Would there be job stability in a Austrian/deflationary economy?
I know there would be more jobs available, but It seems there would be no reason for a company to want to keep older employees as they are paying them much more in purchasing power than new employees.
For example: Lets say I, the employer, hired you, the employee, on at 10$ an hour. And for easy math sake lets say there is deflation at 10% a year. So the following year I hire employee number 2, who does the exact same job you do, at 9 dollars an hour. I pay him 9$ because I have adjusted his rate for his 10% deflation. Now lets say this continues for 10 years. As an employer, why would I want to keep you on at 10 dollars an hour when I could fire you, and use your 10 dollars an hour to hire 10 people to replace you at 1 dollar an hour. It seems like deflation would make a standard of living decrease common amongst business.
This is the only problem that I can see in the Austrian way of thinking. And in fairness it seems like a much better problem then having your wage purchasing power stripped away from you every year through inflation. It just doesn't seem to promote longevity in the career of an employee.
Maybe a nice moderator can place this in the economics section for me
