I'm not gonna lie, I chuckled a bit reading this.

This hasn't been the case for at least a decade now, if not more.

First it was extended out to maybe once every 2 years, then more, and lately at every company I've worked at (primarily large companies) where pay was mentioned the response is "we pay at or above market rates - discuss with your manager."

Not in all / not anymore. I'm in Canada a 300k IT/consulting company and rated top performer several years in a row. No raises last couple of years, before that it was 0.49 and 1% respectively. This year there was zero salary increase for anybody in our branch.

When it was, it was typically some amount less than inflation. 1-2%

Individual employees. But the base rate (or band) stays the same, which is not what I'm reading here. So you might travel inside the band from low-paid to high-paid, while it stays the same.

Japan had zero or negative interest rates for decades, a period which ended a couple of years ago.

not anymore