LOL! Why have someone lower your expectations when you do a great job of doing it yourself?

Forget inflation. Any published number is cooked beyond recognition. Profit sharing is what it is. It is codified in our contract. I personally do not like profit sharing as we further progress in the current business cycle. It has done a great job up to now. That money is real. I know, I spent it. I will provide input that says we need to further monetize it and wind it down. Risk is increasing.

BTW, there is a real good reason why wages in the aggregate do not keep up with inflation. Credit. In a credit constrained world, wages and prices will be stable in real times and will be will be governed by real productivity. In this non-existent world, productivity increases and allows expansion of credit. Equilibrium.

In our real world where credit is completely disconnected from productivity, there is no way to balance rampant monetary inflation over the long term. To measure expectations against the fantasy of Delta pilots somehow finding a way to exist in an alternate monetary universe is naive. We can do better than inflation at times during the business cycle, but we will lag at other times when the wheels must come off the bus.

I am not saying that one should not be cognizant of inflation. Indeed, the opposite is what I prescribe. Just do not expect the ability to capture credit money to outpace its production for any period other than the short term. Your focus should be on channeling surplus credit money into wealth forms that are resistant to monetary inflation. IOW, keeping what you have already saved. That is how to fight and win in this global system of money.

Any time comparing our compensation to an inflation index is wasted time better spent on educating yourself on what to do with your surplus earnings.