Ah, but Marcia, that's the point: The decline in the direct cost of commodities has come about because of increased productivity, the ratio of output per unit of labor.

Increased productivity comes primarily from automation. It takes far fewer workers to produce the basics than it used to. Some of those workers have moved on to creating new products, but as I observe, many more have moved to non-productive occupations such as advertising, marketing, accounting, package design, graphics*; not to mention entertainment and the service industries. My point is that we've avoided an economic crash due to massive unemployment because of virtual "featherbedding"--people have a way of getting money to spend on the basics by doing other things besides producing goods.

(Knowing that you're a graphic designer, let me hasten to say that I'm using "productive" in the literal sense of producing a tangible product for sale. In other words, you're not in manufacturing or agriculture.)

Productivity devalues labor. It's not a matter of the "fashion" of "putting a number" on it, it's just cold hard math. It's interesting that the system you describe of workers earning "credits" implies that it's as artificial as I'm saying it is. In a universe of true abundance in which no human labor is required to produce goods, labor is valueless; and so these "credits" must be arbitrarily assigned to maintain a fiction of worth. It's still a game.

Where do you think inflation comes from?

Ferengis are not to be likened to Republicans (evil grin to Robert),

Well, you didn't hear Quark on a rerun of DS9 the other night doing an uncanny imitation of Tom!