One, by Edward Lazear of Stanford University Business School, found that workers installing car windscreens increased their productivity when they were put on piece rates rather than on fixed wages.

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In deflation the nominal value of debts remains fixed even as nominal wages, prices and profits fall.

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It is an historical accident: employers began offering health insurance during the second world war as a way of attracting workers at a time when wages were fixed by the government.

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Inflation helps too, as debts are fixed at their historical values but wages should rise with inflation.

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Final salary schemes, which guarantee a pension equivalent to a fixed proportion of workers' final wages, provide a more generous retirement income than defined contribution schemes, which are tied to stock market performance.

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The benefits of breaking the stranglehold of a union that has turned wages into something approaching a fixed cost are innumerable for a firm that is now fighting the competition with one hand tied behind its back.

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The idea that one of the structural problems that needs to be fixed is anachronistic management is consistent with, and not made unlikely by, depressed wages, many people looking for jobs, and factories running under capacity.

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