[CryptoPunk]

I agreed with everything you said, except this:

>>I think its well understood among people who are familiar with unions that increasing labor costs results in acceleration of an automation process that is already in progress.

Increased labor costs slow the rate at which the economy automates.

The rate of automation is almost indistinguishable from the rate of economic growth. Almost all economic growth comes from the labor-cost savings, and those in turn come from automation and trade-derived specialization.

When one of the major inputs to production, like labor, is subject to arbitrary government imposed price floors, it leads to economic deadweight losses that reduce economic output, and in turn reduce the volume of economic resources available to invest in new capital that automates production.

Automation increases per capita production, and with it, wages.