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Both the aerospace wage decision and the steel price rollback provided encouraging signs of a slowdown in the wage-price spiral. In recent years, unions have justified exorbitant wage settlements by pointing to ever higher cost of living increases, and companies have been able to pass along higher costs to the consumer almost with impunity. That game of economic leapfrog now has some new rules. As aerospace workers and steel executives learned, those who jump too far are apt to land out of bounds.