Prices go up and salary doesn't: where goes delta?
"Where goes the Delta? To the sea, of course.  Your question is very valid and for once, I think most of the answers are too involved into mechanical details and are badly missing the big picture.  At the risk of over simplifying things, let me try to describe the situation in broad strokes: Inflation: the volume of money grows faster than production (including services).  Deflation: production increase faster than the volume of money.  Imagine an economy with 10 products and $10. 1 product = $1. In an inflationary scenario, money available increase: $20 for 10 products. 1 product = $2.  In a deflationary scenario, money available decrease: $5 for 10 products. 1 product = $0.5.  So far, it's pretty textbook. Now onto the stuff that you don't usually read in textbooks: Time.  Say 10 people are attending an auction, each with $10 bucks. 10 items are for sale. $100 and 10 items. Item price is $10. Now, if just before opening the bidding, you go around and give each person $40, every one has $50. Each product sells for $50. That's the picture people have of inflation. Prices have increased, but everybody has more money, so it comes down to the same thing.  Now, let's bring this example closer to reality: You have to distribute $400, so the total amount of money is $500, which means that the normal price of each item should be $50. Now, imagine that instead of giving money to everyone at the same time, you started by giving $40 to 1 guy who was hanging out in front. The auction starts. While you go around distributing the money, the first guy manages to buy 2 items at $10 each. Now, there is $480 in the market, and only 8 items, making each item $60 on average. The next guy to get money manages to snap 2 items at $15. 6 items left and $450 in play. Each item now costs $75....and keep increasing in price as things move along. People who get the money early buy items under their real value, and people who get paid at the end pick up the tab, because by then, there are only a few items left. Back to reality, while inflation means that wages eventually increase (and they do), actual purchasing decrease for most people due to this simple trick. Employees are pretty much at the end of the chain. Income tax Another major source of ""signal loss"" is income tax. It works by brackets, as you certainly know. Simplifying again because I am lazy: Take a guy who earns $100. Pays no taxes. Can buy 100 products at $1 each. Now, put in some inflation... He earns $500. He pays $50 in taxes and can buy 90 products at $5 each. By the time he earns $10,000, he can only buy 50 products on account of income tax. So this is another area where you are bleeding purchasing power, and why income tax, which was originally presented as a tax for the ultra-rich is now a fact of life for most people (except the ultra-rich, of course).  Money as debt Next stop: Money itself. Money is created as debt in our society. At the risk of over-simplifying things again, let's say Bank A has $1000 in assets. In the fractional reserve system (our current system), Bank A can lend out many times over that amount. Let's say $9,000, for a total of $10,000 (much more in reality). And of course, it lends that money at interest. When bank A has made $10,000 available through 10% interest loans, the total amount of money has increased by $10,000, but when the loans are paid back, $11,000 must be paid to the bank, so the net result of the operation is that $1,000 get taken out of the market.  This system explains why almost all companies and governments have huge debts, and why most of the world's large companies belong to financial institutions of some kind, and why most of the world's wealth rest in very very few hands.  To fully answer your question and provide details and references and names, one would have to write a book or 5. There is a lot more than can be said on the subject, and of course, all the examples given here are extremely simplified, but I think they illustrate the key issues pretty well.  Bottom-line is that our system is designed that way. Our economic system is rigged and the delta bleeds out on automatic." Purchasing commodities (whose prices are increasing rapidly), improving corporate profitability, buying imports (the US dollar is weaker than it was, so the price of everything imported has gone up), paying down corporate debt, etc. One of the byproducts of free trade is that there is now a global labor market. So companies routinely review their operations and think strategically about where the company is going. Standard options are: Because the disincentives that once existed in the past are gone (the need for humans to do work, tariffs, regulation, poor infrastructure in the developing world), the available supply of labor is greater and demand lower -- thus wages are falling in real terms. Think in the simplest terms in an office environment.  In 1980 to make photocopies, you needed a Xerox machine that required a technician on site every couple of weeks to make adjustments, change toner, etc. There was probably a local rep you called to schedule break/fix serivce. Now technology has replaced that copy machine with a cheap multi-function device that requires no maintenance and any technical support is delivered by a person sitting in a Indian call center. So to answer your question, the incremental money from rising prices goes to a number a places. Alot of it goes to oil producers and other commodity producers. Much of it consists of indirect costs that fulfill other mandated services -- when you buy something, buried in that cost are things like health insurance, prescription drugs and school taxes. "Salaries normally shouldn't fluctuate with inflation and deflation... Inflation prevents consumers from spending (prices get too high), ultimately taking money out of circulation. This causes the market to go in to deflation (or at least deflate back to normal). That's when people begin to spend again, and start the cycle all over again. Now... Imagine if salaries increased with inflation... Inflation would never end. Everyone could keep affording the high prices. A Starbucks coffee would eventually cost $150, but the ""middle-class"" would all be millionaires. Your ""small-change"" would consist of a wad of useless bills, and the government would have to continually print out more money just to keep up. NOTE: This is not a direct answer to ""where goes delta?"", but would more be directed to the part ""Prices go up and salary doesn't""." I expected a word or two on the price elasticity of demand here :) Andrey, Your question needs slight revision in its current form. Rising prices actually do not mean increased profitability for a company. The quantity they sell also pays a huge part and actually is correlated to the price at which they sell the goods (and other factors such as the price at which their competitor sells the goods etc., but we will ignore it for simplicity).  The net profit of sales for any firm is equal to  (Qty x Sale Price) - COGS - SG&A - taxes - other expenses where, COGS means cost of goods sold SG&A means sales, general and admin costs (e.g., cleaning the inventory storage area daily so that the goods stay fresh etc.) other expenses include any miscellaneous other costs that the firm incurs to make the sale. Now, if everything in that equation remains same (COGS, SG&A, taxes, and other expenditures), rising prices will only translate into a higher profit if the quantity does not fall by the same margin. Prices may also rise simply as a response to risking COGS, SG&A or other expenditures --the latter may be observed in inflationary environments. In such a case, the supplying firm can end up losing its profit margin if the quantity falls by more than the price rise.
"To add to MrChrister's answer:  Canada also has a Consumer Price Index (CPI) used to measure inflation that is distinct and separate from that maintained by the United States. There are differences in inflation between the U.S. and Canada because our currencies are different, and there may be different items in the ""basket"" of goods that constitutes the index. You can find current information on the Canadian CPI at Statistics Canada, here: Latest release from the Consumer Price Index. Also, the Bank of Canada – our central bank – maintains a free online Inflation Calculator.  The BoC's inflation calculator is handy because you can enter a dollar amount for a past date and it will figure out what that would be in today's dollars.  For instance, $100 in 1970 dollars had the same purchasing power (under the CPI) as $561.76 in 2009 dollars! And you're right – if you get a salary increase that is less than the rate of inflation, then in theory you have lost purchasing power.  So, anybody really looking for a raise ought to make an effort to get more than the increase in CPI.  Of course, some employers are counting on you not knowing that, because any increase that's less than CPI is effectively a salary decrease; which could mean more profit for them, if they are able to increase their prices / revenues at inflation or better. Finally, consider that salary & wage increases also contribute to inflation!  Perhaps you've heard of the wage/price inflation spiral.  If you haven't, there's more on that here and here." "Is there ever any ambiguity on what that that exact strike is in delta space, or does everyone back it out from the pricing model the same way?  I ask, because in my product nearly everyone runs a heavier delta to the put (the severity of that varies). So on trades that are ""tied up"", everyone participating on it can have slightly different deltas that they are modeling" Actually it has been disproven that minimum wage leads to higher earnings for companies. You are without a doubt wrong on that fact. Because money has fluctuating value, more money does not necessarily lead to higher purchasing power. This is pretty well known by most monetary theorist. It's actually pretty ridiculous to believe otherwise. But hey, if you want to be wrong be my guest. "This is pretty meaningless and somewhat misleading. They measured price increases mostly on things that were produced elsewhere and would not be expected to see price increases (e.g. gas). Most retail prices are not heavily impacted by local labor prices. For many goods, local retail labor costs would constitute less than 5% of the total cost. Plus, local retailers still have to compete with online retailers, as well as retailers outside the city limits, so they can't dramatically hike prices and be competitive. If the min wage increases did impact prices, it's more likely that local retailers would see their margins shrink and some of them would go out of business as a result.   On the things that are produced locally, such as food from a restaurant, they found significant price increases. There's also been significant evidence showing that restaurant job creation lagged behind in Seattle versus the rest of Washington state.   http://www.aei.org/publication/some-early-results-from-seattles-radical-experiment-with-a-15-an-hour-minimum-wage-fewer-jobs-fewer-hours/  https://www.aei.org/publication/minimum-wage-effect-seattle-area-restaurant-jobs-have-fallen-900-this-year-vs-6200-food-jobs-in-rest-of-state/  They also seem to have forgotten to mention substitution effects for labor; such as restaurants using more technology to eliminate labor.   Overall, the articles reads like yet another ""rose colored classes"" spin on one of the most detrimental economic policies in the US. It's almost silly watching people try to find reasons how ""increasing the price of labor"" and ""destroying contractual freedom for unskilled laborers"" creates magical free lunches." Yep, I often think that baby boomers don't understand that there's inflation and that the salary they had years ago might not be good enough..  Sure, median income has decreased in the last decade, but it's no excuse for paying engineers 45K because they'll jump ship as soon as they put their resume on Monster and get offer of 60-80k. Usually when a stock is up-trending or down-trending the price does not go up or down in a straight line. In an uptrend the price may go up over a couple of days then it could go down the next day or two, but the general direction would be up over the medium term. The opposite for a downtrend. So if the stock has been generally going up over the last few weeks, it may take a breather for a week or two before prices continue up again. This breather is called a retracement in the uptrend. The Fibonacci levels are possible amounts by which the price might retract before it continues on its way up again. By the way 50% is not actually a Fibonacci Retracement level but it is a common retracement level which is usually used in combination with the Fibonacci Retracement levels. This sort of thinking is one of the problems with economics. It's way too simplistic, and unrepresentative of how a company works. No company increases the price of a product because they hired a more expensive employee, unless said employee is dead weight.   It might be a process engineer, that right now costs the company a bit more, but 12 months down the line will improve production efficiency by at least the value of his salary. And if they improve it more, by say 200% of their salary? Product price stays the same, he gets a pat on his back from the boss, and the company increases it's profits.   And what usually happens when you nickel-and-dime your employees? They lose engagement and interest, or worst, they hire a shit employee for a shit salary and get little to no benefit from hiring. "Your first article is all about analyzing the effect of minimum wage on employment by looking at rents. Their analysis ""assumes peoples' utility functions in a particular city depend on wages plus amenities less the cost of rent available in that city""  Basically if wages go up (due to a minimum wage hike for example) the city is more desirable to live in and people would lay more to live there. That is not at all the mechanism you were talking about and would not apply for a national raise in minimum wage.   Why should I read the rest of your links when you didn't even read the first one?" The history of the last 100 years has demonstrated that inflation need not be a straight-line advance in price across the board. New technology has delivered productivity gains which have in many cases compensated for inflation. Keep in mind that price changes may be inflationary, but may not attributable to inflation. For example, the massive swing upward in gasoline prices had more to do with the market, specifically Chinese demand for gas than inflation. But increased fuel costs trickle into the prices of other commodities that we need to buy as well! I think it's important to be clear what is being studied here. It's the effect of a more dramatic increase in the min wage than we've seen before.  There are many studies which show no negative effect at all on employment in situations where gradual increases in the min wage happen. Just like there are several well known studies that compare similar cities with different minimum wages that show no negative affect on employment in the city with the higher wage.  But in none of those situations was the wage ever increased quite like it was in Seattle, so that's the new thing to study here.  So again, the study is clearly *not* trying to say that raising the minimum wage has a negative effect on employment. Rather it's looking at just this particular significant increase.  For me, this really is an indictment on the unwillingness of congress to gradually raise the minimum wage over time using some sort of sensible inflationary benchmark.   Had they been gradually inflating the wage over time to coincide with normal inflation, we could see a $12 min wage already that had no appreciable effect on employment.  So is the solution a sudden correction to get to the wage up to a liveable standard in one, perhaps slightly painful to employment swoop? Or is it to go more gradually, meaning that you'll still remain decades behind inflation growth? The mechanism of supply and demand is imperfect.  Producers don't know exactly how many purchasers/consumers for a good there are.  Some goods, by their nature, are in short supply, and some are plentiful. The process of price discovery is one where (in a nominally free market) producers and purchasers make offers and counter-offers to assess what the price should be.  As they do this the historical price changes, usually floating around some long-term average.  As it goes up, we experience inflation.  As it goes down, deflation. However, there isn't a fixed supply of producers and purchasers, so as new ones arrive and old ones leave, this too has an impact on supply and prices. Money (either in electronic or physical form) needs to be available to reflect the transactions and underpin the economy. Most central banks (at least in more established economies) aim for inflation of 2-4% by controlling the availability of money and the cost of borrowing new money.  There are numerous ways they can do this (printing, issuing bonds, etc.). The reason one wants some degree of inflation is because employees will never accept a pay cut even when one would significantly improve the overall economy.  Companies often decrease their prices in order to match lower demand, but employees don't usually accept decreased wages for decreased labour demand. A nominal degree of overall money inflation therefore solves this problem.  Employees who get a below-inflation wage increase are actually getting a wage cut. Supply and demand must be matched and some inflation is the inevitable consequence of this. As an expansion on the correct answer: Consider a really boring economy.  Nothing changes;  wages and prices stay constant for years at a time.  Every month the Consumer Price Index stays at 0%.   Then, something catastrophic happens, say on July 31, 2000. A cheap local source for a vital resource runs out, and it must be obtained from a higher cost source.  Floods cut internal road networks, resulting in higher transportation costs.  Whatever.  The new situation is permanent. As a result, the next month, August, 2000, prices go up 5%.  That is, 5% higher than the previous month, July, 2000, and 5% higher than a year previously, August 1999. There is a lot of consternation, and politicians each promise that they and only they can wrestle inflation to the ground. But, when the figures for September, 2000 come out, inflation stays the same.  Prices are the same as in August, 2000, and 5% higher than in September, 1999. This goes on for months.  Nothing changes, prices stay the same, and the inflation rate, year over year, stays at 5%. Finally, the figures for August, 2001 come out.  Wonder of wonders;  prices are the same as in August, 2000, and inflation drops to zero.   And the politicians all take the credit. Short version: inflation year over year changes either because of what in now included in the month just past, or what is now excluded from a year ago. FYI...prices don't always go up.  Inflation is a monetary phenomenon.  I'm simplifying greatly here: if more money is printed (or the money supply increases through fractional reserve banking) and it is chasing the same amount of goods then prices will go up.  Conversely, if money is held constant and the economy becomes more productive, producing more goods, then a constant amount of money is chasing an increasing amount of goods and prices go down. After the Civil War the greenback went back to being on a gold standard in 1879.  After 1879 greenbacks could be redeemed for gold.  Gold restricts money growth since it is difficult to obtain. Here are the price and wage indexes from 1869 - 1889 (from here):  Notice from 1879 to 1889 that wholesale and consumer prices fall but wages start to increase.  Imagine your salary staying the same (or even increasing) but the prices of items falling. Still don't think inflation is a monetary phenomenon?  Here is a CPI chart from 1800 to 2007:  Notice how the curve starts to go drastically up around 1970.  What happen then?  The US dollar went off the gold-exchange standard and the US dollar became a purely fiat currency backed by nothing but government decree which allows the Federal Reserve to print money ad nauseum. With the netural position delta strategy under high IV returns short vega,there is a possibility to profit from a decline in IV. Of course, if volatility rises higher, the position will lose money. It is therefore best to establish short vega delta-neutral positions when implied volatility is at levels that are in the 90th percentile ranking. Avoiding tobacco, etc is fairly standard for a fund claiming ethical investing, though it varies. The hard one on your list is loans.  You might want to check out Islamic mutual funds. Charging interest is against Sharia law.  For example: http://www.saturna.com/amana/index.shtml From their about page: Our Funds favor companies with low price-to-earnings multiples, strong   balance sheets, and proven businesses. They follow a value-oriented   approach consistent with Islamic finance principles. Generally, these   principles require that investors avoid interest and investments in   businesses such as liquor, pornography, gambling, and banks. The Funds   avoid bonds and other conventional fixed-income securities. So, it looks like it's got your list covered.  (Not a recommendation, btw. I know nothing about Amana's performance.) Edit: A little more detail of their philosophy from Amana's growth fund page: Generally, Islamic principles require that investors share in profit   and loss, that they receive no usury or interest, and that they do not   invest in a business that is prohibited by Islamic principles. Some of   the businesses not permitted are liquor, wine, casinos, pornography,   insurance, gambling, pork processing, and interest-based banks or   finance associations. The Growth Fund does not make any investments that pay interest. In   accordance with Islamic principles, the Fund shall not purchase   conventional bonds, debentures, or other interest-paying obligations   of indebtedness. Islamic principles discourage speculation, and the   Fund tends to hold investments for several years.