STOCKS PLUNGE: HOW FRAGILE IS THE U.S. AND WORLD CAPITALIST ECONOMY!

The U.S. minimum wage in real terms is at the same level as in the1960s and 1970s in spite of the takeoff in productivity as a result of computer technology and artificial intelligence over the last half a century. Unions have been virtually rooted out of the private sector and consequently wages in real terms of workers in heavy industry have stagnated for several decades. And yet the first sign that wages are beginning to improve throws Wall Street stocks into a tailspin which in turn affects other stock exchanges throughout the world.  What’s curious is that establishment economists with exclusive access to the corporate media attribute the stock plunge of the last several days to the increase in wages and thus conclude that the world economy is basically healthy and that there is nothing to fear. Critical economists, both Marxists and non-Marxists, who ascribe stock volatility to systemic factors, are not given a word in the corporate media. But common sense tells you that a slight increase in wages for those at the lower rung of the economic ladder cannot be the root cause of such violent stock behavior and that the reaction to what is happening should not be one of complacency as has been the case with establishment economists. But then, of course, Herbert Hoover, reacted in similar fashion.