Innovation: The Gift That Keeps On Giving
Christmas Abundance Survives COVID Policies
Did Christmas survive the last four years of government COVID and monetary policies? We went back to November 2019 just before the COVID crisis and looked at the prices of 12 Christmas items, average hourly wages, and the CPI as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). We then compared them to today’s reported values. The first thing we note is that average hourly wages have increased slightly more than the CPI, 20.28 percent to 19.38 percent. Nine of the 12 items also increased in nominal money price. Only technology, toys, and airfares decreased in price.
However, we know that many things have gotten more expense, but the real question is have they gotten more affordable? To answer this question we must compare prices to hourly wages. In other words, we must calculate the time price. When we did this we found that 10 of the 12 items have become less “time” expensive. Abundance can be measured as a function of the change in time prices over time. How much can you buy with an hour of your time today compared to yesterday? If an hour of your time can buy more, then your life is more abundant. From 2019 to 2023 abundance increased by an average of around 13.5 percent, with a 6.08 percent decrease for stationary and gift wrap to a 55.09 percent increase for technology. For the time it took to earn the money to buy one item in 2019, you get 1.135 items today.
How is this possible? Abundance increases when we innovate and innovation is the discovery and sharing of valuable new knowledge. Human beings have a long history of continuing to innovate in spite of challenges from nature, wars, and bad government policies. Our recent bout of monetary inflation has created noise and distortion and painful redistribution in our economy, but time prices suggest hope and optimism.
What are time prices telling us this year? Eat less candy, recycle your wrapping paper, and enjoy traveling more. Merry Christmas.
Tip of the Hat: Justin Wolfers
We describe the process of transforming scarcities to abundances in our new book, Superabundance, available at Amazon. There has never been a better time to create more life.
Gale Pooley is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute and a board member at Human Progress.
Amen brother.
The gospel of Superabundance continues to amaze me. It is counter to the narrative of both the left (capitalism creates inequality at best and an increase to poverty at its worst) and right (inflation is beating down the working class).
Preach!