Small businesses are hurting...

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With that broad definition all jobs are viable if they help pay housing costs. Unfortunately housing is so expensive and wages are so low that rent/mortgage exceed 100% of a full time McJob's take home pay, so people have no choice but to change careers or work multiple jobs etc etc - and it's getting worse.

What's considered "affordable," by economists is for housing to cost maximum 1/3rd of income. That's exceedingly rare here.

Canadians, too.

I've seen over 100 applications for a just above entry level accounting job that pays about $50K, yet construction companies that pay $40-70K+ benefits can't get anyone to build walls and resort to hiring undesirables simply because they have a pulse and show up.

Well, that is good for the "Undesirables" who might not otherwise have a job.

Back during my own homeless days, I used to make the rounds of the construction sites offering to do the scut work for cash at minimum wage.  It was back-breaking, dirty, dusty, nasty work, but after the first week, the foreman upped my wage and expected me to show up with the other workers during regular hours.  It took a few months, but I was able to eventually acquire a more permanent address and some cheap four-wheeled transportation.  Then the foreman put me on the regular payroll.  The rest is history.

While I am not saying that all (or even most) of the "Undesirables" will be as fortunate or hard-working as I, what I am saying is that it is a good thing that they are working and not harassing honest people going about their business downtown.

---

Human Potential Thrives More in the Dark than Light...

That Might Sound Like Non-Sense Unless You Have
Bigger Picture Intelligence AKA Wisdom Gained

Through REAL EXiSTENTiaL EXPERIENCE IN LIFE...

Oh Lord, Now the Protestant Work-Ethic and The
Catholic Big Push For Reproduction is Dying OUT...

What Will We Humans Do Next; Perhaps

Develop Our Greater Human Potentials

That Are NOT CONSUMED SO MUCH BY
CONSUMING THE REST OF THE RESOURCES
OF THE EARTH OUT OF BALANCE DESTROYING
ONE OUT OF EIGHT LIVING SPECIES IN THE COMING

DECADES TOO; Hmm... i Wonder What in the World
Could Alter this 'Human Pandemic' in One Lifetime;

YeS, A Different Pandemic Than What Human CuLTuRE

Destroys on this Most Beautiful Blue and Green Living Orb We NAME

EartH AS POSSESSION THAT OLD TIME ReLIGION SUGGESTS WE HAVE
A 'GOD GIVEN OF SOME KIND RIGHT' TO DOMINATE, MASTER AND CONTROL...

That's An Interesting

Illusion that might

Last for A Few Thousand

Years Yet that is Only A Stain

On the Face of Nature AKA REAL GOD NOW...

IN OR OUT OF BALANCE FOR REAL NOW; AS We've

Really Screwed Up the Recipe For Our Living Cake with

All the Icing We continue to Waste; In this Way As Ironic as it may

Seem, the Struggle Of A Virus-Like Pandemic May Bring Us A Different

'Epigenetic' And Associated 'Neuroplastic' Way of Life IN Change For Different;

Whether it is Better or Not,

Is Dependent on the View

of Each Human; My Wife and

i Visited A Local Restaurant on Saturday

That We Laud Perennially As Serving the Best

Bring it To You Seafood in the Area for $18.99,

A Two Dollar Increase Since the Pandemic, We Were

Ready And Willing to Pay For; And then We found the Serve
it to You Buffet Was Gone; Go to the Pans of Food in the Buffet
Line And When the Waitress Came by i Noted to Her the Food is Cold;

She Didn't Have any Plans to Resolve the Issue, Yet Explain, They Couldn't
Find Enough Employees At their Minimum Wage to Serve All You can Eat
Seafood to The Customers Hot Anymore; i Worked With Customer Service

Over Two Decades; Big Face Palm Moment That Explained Why the Restaurant

Was Nearly Empty At 6 PM; We Won't Be Going Back; On Top of that During the

Pandemic, my Wife Developed Culinary Skills of Cooking that Are Second to None;

Retired, i have more Money Than i'll Ever Care to Spend (My Wife Not so Much) Yet

Anyway, Money is no Object of Concern in my Household Any More And My Retirement

Pay Will Double Next June; And My Padded Nest Egg Ain't Go No Where, Yet Up for the

Rest of My Life at Least;

My Wife 10 Years Younger
Will Surely Have no Financial
Problems Either; Yes, i Sacrificed
33 Years of my Life to Obtain the
Golden Egg Benefits of Federal Employment;
The Stress Literally'; Yes, Almost Literally killing me;
Leaving me Living Dead for 66 Months Until Recovering

Stronger Than Ever Before and So Dam Happy And Free;
Some Folks Still Consider my Heaven Condition, A 'Condition';

Yet Never the less, Guess What? There Are many Things in Life
That Bring Autotelic Flow of Heaven Within that Cost Relatively Nothing

To Do in Life; What This Means is the Eccentric Dude Dancing With All the
Colors Every Where He Goes; Writing Free Verse Poetry Just For Fun May

Have A Stash

of Free Cash

Most Folks Can't

Imagine in Life; Why?

Because When Everyone else

Was Building Bigger Homes and

Marrying 'Newer Wives' and Raising

Additional Families, And Getting New

Loans For Four Wheel Drives Every 3 Years
That Cost More Than Their Trailers in the Woods;

Along With Big Bar Tabs At the Local Tears in the
Beers Pubs All Divorced, Still Supporting 3 Wives, And 3 Families..

i kept the Same Wife 31 Years, Same Home For Close to 28 Years now;

Same Cars For Sweet 16 Years; And Everything is All Paid off; And Life

is Just Dam

Sure Heaven

For me at Least;

Meanwhile, the Locals
Don't Have Enough Common
Sense to Cover Up Their Kids's Faces

in A Deadly Pandemic Epi-Center
Place in 'Trump Town' USA; Yet

They Still Worship their

Four Wheel Drives

And Protestant

Work Ethic,

With A Frown, With A Frown

And A Sour Puss while i Enjoy

The Ecstasy of Beating A System

More, Overall, 'Non-Sensical' Than Any
Place in the Relatively Short-Blip of Human-Kind

Ever; Such Rich Abundance, So Many Flavors; Yet

Folks Insist On Being All Salty

And Focusing

on What they
Will Consume Next In Life;

Nope, No Cold Seafood For me;

My Wife is A Much Better Cook Than
That For 20 Percent of the Price of Restaurants...

Yes, Yes, She Deserves A Break; Yet, She Refuses
to Eat Cold Seafood And Yes, So Do i; Of Course there

Are Bigger Problems Like Hurricanes Still coming, So Far

With Enough Mexican Immigrant Roofers to Install New Roofs...

Yet of Course there is the Ignorance That Wants to Blame the Pandemic

On Them And Turn their Life Savings Skills Away at the Border; Not Much

Different Than Covid-19 Ignorance And if the Health Care Workers Say Hell

No to the

'Protestant
Work Ethic' too...

Careful, Be Very Careful

of Who Might Be Taking

Care of Ya, On The Long Way Down...

i'll Be The First one to Admit, my Life

Would Have Been Different if We Tried to Have

More Kids Who Lived; Yet Looking Around me
'These Days' Rare it is Anyone i See Who is Actually

Breathing in Ease...

If You Cannot

Breathe in

Ease Now;

You've Failed

This 'CoNTesT' of Life...

Humans Have Been Hurting

All of Nature Way too Long;

Karma Now, is what's For All Meals of Life...

Balance

Or Not;

Survive

Thrive

Or Go Away out of Balance...

i Solved my Problems; Far Beyond

My Pay Grade to MAKE OTHER HUMANS
BE HAPPY; not one to tell folks what they have to do...

True, i Enjoyed Working Customer Service So MUCH,

i Do it without Pay now Cause i CAN

AND WILL... BE HAPPY NOW...
Other than that i Just Saw
A Hundred Year-Old Lady

Celebrating her Birthday
As the World's Oldest Woman

Powerlifter, Still Dead
Lifting 165 Pounds;

Honestly, More

Than Some of the

Folks Who Are Dudes
in their Twenties Who Don't
Venture off of Keyboards these days...

And Of Course At My Age of 61, Still Leg

Pressing Up to 1520 Pounds, 3 Times more

Than when i was 53 and 21; There is No Reason

i won't Be doing it in Coming Decades Except for

Not Creating my Own Bootcamps of Human Struggle

Each and Every Day of My Life to Increase My Epigenetic

Human Potential; No Different than my Military Navy Captain

Friend, Who Worked at the Pentagon, Where Only me and Him

Were at the Million Dollar Equipment Military Gym on Friday Nights;

While Most Everyone Else Was Getting Drunk, He Shrugged 700 Pounds, And His Name

Wasn't Even 'Atlas', Through His Mid 70's And He Squatted 450 Pounds That's Amazing too; Why?

He Didn't

Turn into

A Couch Potato, Yes Sadly

The Other Domesticated
Human Option; Humans Are

Hurting; Humans Are Softer And

More Domesticated Than Ever; And Losing

So Much of Their Animal Kingdom Potential....

Yeah, Sure, Dominating Nature; Go tell it on 'the Mountain' to 'the Lion'...

Meanwhile, the Mexican Roofers Are Still Catching Up to "Sally's Destruction"

Last Summer With Their 'AM Music' Literally Ecstatically Dancing on The Roof;

Doing their

Job As

Perfectly

As Autotelic Flow Creates
in Florida At Least; Next
Batter Up; Yes, Coming
Next, Tropical Storm Fred...

Thank God For All the Mexican
Roofers/Carpenters Named AND DOING 'Jesus' for REAL...

AMERICA HAS A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF KARMA TO DEAL
WITH SIMPLY ACTION AND CONSEQUENCE OF WHAT WE CONTINUE

TO SOW
AND REAP

(HINT: THE
DiSEaSE oF iGNorance;
The Worst Kind, NDD,

NATURE DEFICIT DISORDER;
NO DIFFERENT THAN GDD God Deficit Disorder)

Live out of Balance And Fall; It's As Simple As No Longer RiSinG...

Other than that; i'm Practically A King of Pain and Numb and A
66 Month Veteran of Permanent Assessed Disability; Yep, i Understand

The Struggle

of that Part

of Life too;

The Doctor's Said,

i Had A Prognosis of

Zero Percent Recovery;

As Usual, i Proved Them Wrong, too...

Not Seeing too Many Limitations Through

My Bigger Picture Wisdom Existential Intelligence of Life at least now...

Experience Varies Based on Model and Make of Being Human of Course...

Vehicle

And Vessel;

Form And Essence;

All That Jazz That Makes

Hell Through Heaven A Human Reality Now DarK Thru LiGHT;

Yep, Just Driving Thru on The 'Upside' of my UNiVerSE AT LeasT...

More Than Ever Folks Are Making A Living On Their 'LapTop'

Hint:

Caution,

And Warning;

Humans Are Not

Evolved to Do Sit Down Life;

We Shall Always Reap As We Sow Standing or Falling

Or Practically Not Moving At All; Just Overall, Rotting in Place...

Look Around;

Not What

The Rest

Of Existence

Does; Life is More
Of A Spiral When Energy
From Higher Vibrations And (Emotions, Feelings,
Senses) Frequencies Move Us Within Dancing Singing
OR STOPPING; True, THere Are Many Hidden FREE Benefits
of 'WaiTReSSinG' too; And That's Why i'm Happy To STiLL Do IT FOR FREE...

Not
Evolved
Naturally
Well For 'Roofing'..

---

True.

But there are still a bunch of academically educated professionals who are unemployed and an equal or greater number of job openings in hard working construction jobs that are unfilled.. which is why foreign labour permits get approved every day to import workers because too many people with delicate keyboard hands refuse to lift tools & materials to earn their pay.

"Hand me a shovel and show me where to dig..."

Indeed! Been there, done that, operated goon spoons!

I had this conversation in a comment thread about farm labour. People unwilling to do work. I said office workers who are out of work should do farm work until they land an office job. If I saw a resume of someone getting up at 3:30am to do farm work every day until they landed an accounting job, I'd interview them over the guy sitting at home. Someone in that thread responded and said she was doing exactly that! The vast majority commenting didn't learn a thing, though.

Again, the welfare of the citizens is the responsibility of the state, it's literally their job. Private business supports this through taxation, just like every other taxpayer, where as mandating wages above their value simply crushes small business and shrinks the tax base, making everyone worse off. Also, as a business owner my effective rate of pay for the hours I actually worked was $6/hr, so I was really reaping that profit, Scrooge McDuck style.



I never said I was entitled to cheap labor, I said it was stupid to make businesses pay more than the labor is worth. If a worker's job generates $10/hr in value but their mandated wage is $15/hr, the problem is not that I'm a greedy businessman, the problem is that politicians are trying to outsource welfare to the private sector rather than raising marginal taxes on higher earners and redistributing them down.

I don't know how many times I'm going to need to say this before it sinks in, the welfare of the citizens is not the responsibility of business owners, it's the responsibility of the state, no one opens a business in order to create jobs, that's not how any of this works; raising the wage is just a kludge because the alternative is politically difficult and it's easy to demonize business owners to blue voters.



I'm aware, I'm one of those people collecting UI rather than returning to work while I learn a new skill. I'm happy to see the value of labor go up, what I'm not happy about is mandating the cost of labor to be higher than it's value as a way to avoid unpopular tax hikes on the PMC donor class. I also can't stand the kind of ignorant moralizing you're engaging in, especially from people who've never signed the front of a paycheck, it's one of my pet peeves.



You seem to be conflating highschoolers with teenagers, they're not the same thing, and those jobs are absolutely entry level jobs largely intended for young people just entering the workplace. Dishwasher, fry cook, prep cook, server, busser, hostess, cashier, etc, all are jobs that can be had with little to no experience, and they pay accordingly, often much better when tips are in play.

I could go on at length about what's happening in this field, I was one of the last generations that could get a dishwasher's job and work my way up to cooking and eventually chefing, but now cooking shows and celebrity chefs have made the field attractive to wealthier people who go to cooking school, and you're more commonly seeing requirements for degrees and certifications in up to recently what had been a learn on the job profession. Of course, that hasn't changed the economics of how much you can charge for food, so the pay has remained the same, it's just harder to get the jobs with more credentialed competition out there with dreams of cooking shows and influencer careers.

Lovely. Private businesses and private citizens pick up the bill, via taxes, for employers not wanting to pay a living wage.

And this conversation is hilarious considering current conditions. Right now, a bunch of people are dead, especially in the service industry. Therefore, most restaurants are short staffed.

The owners can either offer higher wages and benefits to attract new workers, or they can crash and burn. No "owner" is entitled to cheap labor. The free market dictates that, if you're not competitive, you drown. At the moment, the free market favors workers over owners. Crying and gnashing teeth does absolutely nothing.

I have zero sympathy for owners who pay poverty wages whining that people don't want to come work crappy jobs.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that poverty stricken women may or may not be able to land a physical labor job.

Speaking from personal experience, men can be pretty crappy about accepting female co-workers.

There are parts of the countries that would have to pay these workers *way* more than $15/hour

Hmm, seems to be working as planned? It keeps losers (workers and small business owners) permanently blaming each other for "being greedy", while upper class can enjoy profits rolling in no matter what. Why would they want to change it?

Did you even read what I wrote at all, or are you just going off of a script at this point? What part of "opening a business is not a social service" are you having a hard time grasping? No one is owed a living wage, what they are owed is the market value of their labor, no amount of moralizing is going to change that. It's not even a moral thing, it's practically physics in that no business that pays out more in wages than the value of the labor it uses is sustainable, the math simply does not work.

Well, if you want to get all Marxist class analysis about it, then yeah. I do think it's weird how I've said "tax the rich and redistribute the wealth to the working class" at least 3 times so far, and that hasn't been mentioned at all, it's like it just slides right over people's brains in favor of "greedy business owners bad". A more conspiratorial person might have theories about that.

Yeah, workers aren't entitled to a paycheck, and owners aren't entitled to cheap labor.

It's always a good time when I have to explain free market economics to a Rightie.

In the current labor shortage, either pay your staff an attractive wage, or burn.

Personally, as crappy, low-paying jobs are a dime a dozen, I couldn't care less. And, when America finally implodes from rising costs and stagnated wages, I can be offered the cold comfort of being right.

Exactly!