Unless you live underneath a rock, the last couple of days you have witnessed a genuine freakout from the chattering classes about the jobs report. To save you some time, I will summarize:
“OMG 300 DOLLARS MORE A WEEK IS MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE TO FORCE THE POORS TO CLEAN THE GREASE TRAPS AT MY FAST FOOD FRANCHISE FOR A WAGE TOO LOW FOR THEM TO PAY THE RENT!”
And really, I am not exaggerating. Shitty, low paying jobs are not being filled, and it is FREAKING out the MBA class. We are at a point where several generations of businesses and business owners have never actually experience a tight labor market, and they literally have no idea what to do. Since the Reagan era, they have been in the driver’s seat, neutering labor unions, having MBA’s nickle and dime employees to death with suppressed wages, cutting away at medical and retirement benefits, shifting them to 401k’s while not providing commensurate pay increases, and so forth. They’ve spent four decades masturbating about being job creators while siphoning all the profit upward, treating employees like indentured servants eager to work 35 hours a week for 8 bucks an hour with no stable schedule, so with employees not willing to literally die during a pandemic to smell like french fries and walmart working the two jobs they need to survive, these shitlords finally find themselves without enough workers.
The one thing they can not find themselves willing to try to do is to try to pay them more. You’ll hear anecdotal stories about McDonald’s owners paying a whole 12 dollars an hour for an “entry level job,” sneering while saying it because everyone knows an entry level position shouldn’t pay enough for the serf to pay rent AND eat. So fuck them.
My suggestion to the government is to not do ANYTHING except push for a 15$ minimum wage, and these assholes will either figure it out on their own and start paying people what thy are worth, start picking the tampons out of their own Burger King bathroom toilets themselves, or go out of business. All of these are fine by me.
These guys can go McFuck themselves.
Gin & Tonic
See plenty of fast-food-type places here in New England hiring at $15/hr.
West of the Rockies
OMG, righteous rant, John! Abso-frickin’-lutely
I guess the job creators will have to settle for the 7,000 square foot mansions and just a 100′ yacht. The poor little darlings…
Jeffro
“I do not know how to increase wages”, said that one parody of an earlier WSJ cartoon.
Except it’s not parody, is it? They really don’t know how to just pay people more, or require masks in their restaurants, or both.
HypersphericalCow
I can take a $0.25 increase in the price of a Quarter Pounder. I think most people can.
JPL
BRAVO!
Baud
I hope the workers know who to thank in 2022. Otherwise, it’s feudalism 2.0.
There’s not going to be another chance.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Matt Yglesias posted this picture from a McDonad’s door. I don’t know if this is DC, VA, or MD, but somehow the “50% off McDonald’s” is the worst part of the ad. You can’t even get a free QP and fries while standing around in aeresoled grease in a polyester uniform for $11/hr?
MagdaInBlack
That was a glorious rant, John. I’m with you 100% I gave a similar one at work this week, shorter, but same profanities ?
dr. bloor
@Gin & Tonic: Which, adjusted for inflation over time, is almost exactly what I was earning to make your Big Mac and clean the restrooms (not necessarily in that order) back in 1978.
I’m too old and waaaay too jaded to think that this is anything more than a hiccup in the downward slide back into feudalism, but it’s vaguely enjoyable just to see the poverty creators gnash their teeth for a change.
Baud
Employers know how to pay more. They don’t want to because it’s hard to reduce wages once you’ve raised them. They’re hoping the GOP will help them out before they are forced to do anything permanent.
WaterGirl
Can this be a rotating tag?
?BillinGlendaleCA
I see you’ve met Steve in the ATL.
Phylllis
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I especially like the ‘PTO, after a year’. Please email me an application.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@HypersphericalCow: that chuckle-headed pizza chain owner throwing fund-raisers on his massive estate and saying an increased minimum wage would lead to a thirty-seven cent increase in the price of his chain store pizzas should’ve been the end of this debate.
@Baud:
worth emboldening
WaterGirl
@Baud: You are so right. There is not going to be another chance.
John Revolta
Well said!
Ken
In many areas the problem is that they’re competing for labor with the bigger stores and businesses that are already paying $15-$20 an hour.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Well, having worked at a Micky D’s a lifetime ago, they have a sliding scale of what from the menu you can eat depending on the length of the shift.
And yes, it was miserly when compared to places like Pizza Hut and KFC.
But this was before the advent of the MBA Ruling Class per John’s screed. I’m sure they’re all that shitty now. McDs was just ahead of the game.
HalfAssedHomesteader
I like how the UI benefits are essentially making government the union of last resort. Sound like a good policy we should build upon.
dr. bloor
@Baud:
NARRATOR: They didn’t.
Baud
@dr. bloor:
Are you … from the future?
guachi
I’m in a DQ outside Atlanta and there’s a sign outside that says something like “Short staffed because no one wants to work”
I’ll be calling to store owner later to bitch at them. What a prick.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
Around here, the more exclusive restaurants are not at all willing to pay what McDonalds pays.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I worked in a family-run pizza place in high school, I can’t remember what we supposed to pay for food, but we were always getting screamed at (and boy could they scream) for not paying for our food
Brachiator
This is a bit of an oversimplification. Employers are having trouble re-hiring people for many reasons. It will settle down, but it’s not just about would-be exploiters being denied their prey.
Also, for some people, the extra $300 is a big deal.
From a great article posted recently by another commenter:
Most honest reporting underscores that people are not just sitting on their butts living the good life on unemployment benefits, but using the funds to help make their lives better. If the combined benefits are creating minor disruptions in the job market, this is a good thing if it helps people get better paying jobs. And ultimately these benefits are temporary. No one is intending to live on them forever.
But the disruptions are also real. Businesses that had to lock down lost revenue, but still had bills to pay or other adjustments to make. A lot of these businesses are willing to pay higher wages, but may be finding it hard to do so. And businesses also compete with other businesses. Another commenter noted that Amazon and other big businesses can force wages even higher and can attract people who might otherwise be willing to work for a smaller establishment.
And even with all this there are still industries that are shut down and millions who do not have jobs and who find the job search still difficult. We still have a long way to go.
Baud
@debbie:
They probably rely on tips to replace wages.
WV Blondie
@WaterGirl: Oh, I absolutely echo that request!
dr. bloor
@Baud:
Oh, okay.
2023 NARRATOR: They didn’t.
Mike in NC
When the Republicans manage to put Matt Gaetz in the White House, they’ll finally be able to abolish the federal minimum wage, which they’ve bleated about for decades. Assholes.
WaterGirl
@debbie: Is McDonald’s pay too high for them, or too low?
edit: is it because tips are surely really good at a high-end restaurant? No tipping at McDonald’s, I presume.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I know Amir is.
Jeffro
Truth. And not a bad way to frame it and sell it, either.
HalfAssedHomesteader
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “Flexible Hours” = Unpredictable schedules.
dr. bloor
@guachi:
I’ll bet there’s some money to be made in peddling “I pay shit” stickers to put over the “no one wants to work” sections of those signs.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I wish he’d start giving us winning lottery numbers.
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: hahaha
realbtl
Anecdata from NW Montana. Grandson got hired with little experience for $16/hr at TruGreen. Seasonal yes but lots of other front door ads for $15-16/hr. I don’t think poverty wages will make a return.
WaterGirl
@HalfAssedHomesteader: Translation:
“Flexible for us, but not for you.”
rikyrah
Official COVID DEAD is closing in on 600,000
That study released this week says that it’s closer to 900,000
600 or 900
THESE PEOPLE WORKED SOMEWHERE
kindness
But…but I read all the time that it is the Republican Party that is the party for
indentured serfsordinary workers.rikyrah
And, it is NOT JUST THE PAY.
It’s also about WORKING IN UNSAFE SITUATIONS???
Baud
Just wait till the Dems pass infrastructure. Demand for labor will go through the roof.
John Revolta
Trouble is, they do know, or they THINK they know what to do about it- “We’ll take away their free Gubmint handouts! THAT’ll get the uppity proles back in line!”
We need to get the UI distribution out of the hands of the states and let the Feds do it.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Too high. The McDonald’s I drive by has a sign saying they pay $15 an hour.
@Baud:
There aren’t enough tips to bring it up to $15/hour. My niece used to wait tables, and she said lots of places require all tips to be pooled and then split between everyone. She was discouraged to get back more than she had put in.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Probably keeping them for himself to buy more guitars.
rikyrah
@WaterGirl:
I agree. Would love this as a tag
comrade scotts agenda of rage
A very old friend of my wife here in Denver owns a fair number of restaurants, not franchises, individual places where he also makes sure he owns the property.
His politics are conservative but he hides them fairly well, at least around us knowing we’re screamingly librul. His variation on this is:
“These workers collecting unemployment would rather stay at home smoke pot, play video games and watch porn rather than get a job.”
Thing is, he pays dishwashers at his places $22/hour to start. I know he’s had servers during the booming times of the last 8 years make 100K per year. And his places are well run and they don’t treat employees like mindless commodities. I can’t figure out wtf is going on here.
The extreme cost of housing is one factor because people making that can’t afford to live anywhere close unless it’s with 9 other people.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
There was a good series about the perils of opening a small business a few years back. On public TV I think. One lady opened up a frozen yogurt place. Two main mistakes. Opened in summer when lots of potential customers, but did not anticipate the winter fall off. The other, big problem, was staff who would sneak into the stuff, and who would also give their friends free samples. Seriously ate into revenues.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah:
I had the same thought when I read that article about 905,000 dead (or whatever the number was). That’s a million people who are not going back to work.
Fucking heartless bastards. (Not the people who died, obviously.) Though I’m sure these cheap-ass employers think it was quite an inconveniences to the employers that they died.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Is he talking about his business, or in general?
WaterGirl
@Baud: Yep. I think it will pass, even if it has to be through reconciliation, which I believe it will.
Biden will wait for this Caputo group that will meet next week, and when they propose something ridiculous then it’s reconciliation, baby.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
Just his various establishments.
Barbara
@guachi: Maybe do some surreptitious editing by adding in all caps “FOR SHIT WAGES.”
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: It’s hard to forget when your employer doesn’t really give a shit whether you live or die, the same for your family.
I’m looking at the guy MomSense works for. And a million other guys just like him.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: Remember, COVID-19 was the “Boomer Remover” so they weren’t working anyway. //
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Yeah, that weird if that’s his pay.
JMG
Sign still up at my Cape Cod Stop ‘n Shop supermarket. Hiring at $17 an hour. Worth noting that while in the much discussed job report food and beverage service jobs employment increased, for grocery workers it decreased. Nobody tips the bagpersons. Many assholes yell at the shelf stackers about why they have to wear a mask and where the hell are the Spanish olives. So who needs it. Even Amazon pays better than the average supermarket.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Screw it, i just added it. Better to beg forgiveness than permission, right?
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I support your coup d’blog.
John Revolta
@debbie:
Yeah, pooling tips is another racket, so they can screw the rest of the staff like they screw the waitstaff.
RSA
Kathleen Parker wrote an annoying opinion in the Post yesterday, including this line:
The math is easy: Montana’s minimum wage brings you up to 65% of the federal poverty level for a family of four. State and federal benefits only bump you 18% over the poverty line. She doesn’t mention either point, of course, just arguing that people should go back to work. Is it any wonder that people are looking for something better in their lives if they have the chance?
WaterGirl
@Baud: Good to know you’ve got my back if John protests.
The Moar You Know
@HalfAssedHomesteader: worse. When I worked for Starbucks twenty years ago, what it meant was that you had to work 40 hours in a week to get health insurance, and the store manager would get fired if they let you go over 35.
Still means the same thing.
ETA: should probably add in response to all the posts of “well place Y has had a sign up for $17/hr” is that work is neither full time nor has any benefits.
dr. bloor
@Brachiator: TBH, unless the “free samples” involved gallon-sized containers, this sounds like credulous reporting. The mark-up on inventory at fast-food places is ginormous–when I worked at a McDonald’s, staff would have died of diabetes and/or heart disease before it made a significant dent in the bottom line.
Geminid
Last November, Californians gave Joe Biden 63.5% of their votes. And they also passed Proposition 22, which exempts ride and delivery companies from giving most employees labor law protections, with 59% of their vote.
I wonder about the people who voted for Biden, and then voted for Proposition 22. Do they meet their friends at nice restaurants and coffeehouses, and lament the sad problem of income inequality? And then compare the best deals on gourmet food delivery?
A California jackal referred to these people as “latte liberals.”
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
That’s his pay. He’s honest, tons of integrity, I’ve known him 40 years, my wife longer. I’ve seen the job adverts and we talk about the economics and business of this stuff all the time. Thus, I believe him.
Which is why the apparent disconnect between what he reports and the general national stories has me scratching my head other than there are some other underlying reasons specific to a booming place with hyper-gentrification going on and a corresponding hyper rise in housing prices. Or more, beats the hell outta me.
dr. bloor
@Baud:
Can I interest you in a copy of the Omnibus Sports Almanac of 2050? Very reasonable terms.
No name
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I wonder if people are not just looking at what they’re paid, but how much of their life they’re handing over for it. People in a lot of other countries are not just better compensated, but have vastly more time off. $15 an hour is an improvement, but like the McDonald’s sign in a previous comment, PTO after a year??
Brachiator
@RSA:
Yeah, the math is simple. The wages are too low.
This works out to an annual wage of what, $17,992. This might be an OK supplement for a student or an actor working between other jobs and auditions.
I think that Kathleen Parker and other pundits writing this stuff should sign off by noting their current salary. And also note whether they would be willing to accept minimum wage to keep their job.
ETA: putting it into context is good even if the pundit favors a higher minimum wage.
Nobody in particular
Another nice thing about the LVT. It’s the ONLY tax. Everyone with a jot of sense knows that if you tax something, like a laborer’s pay, you’ll get less of it. Even WFB, Jr. understood that wealth is a creation of the interplay between Labor, Capital, and Land. There is an infinite capacity to create labor and capital, but the land is inelastic and taxing won’t make less of it. Also, it is very difficult to hide a piece of land from the tax collector. But under our system now, real estate deals are where all the grift, money laundering, and tax avoidance, and evasion are going on. With a BIG, people will still go to work. “Yeah! I want a Porsche, too!”
We Need a Tax Police– and they should go after the likes of Trump
David Cay Johnston
Two years old but fresh as freshly baked bread.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Geminid:
It’s a bit more complicated than that, Uber, in particular, was running a lot of ads with “their drivers” telling folk how much they enjoyed the contractor arrangement. Of course, one of the main things these companies wanted to do was dump health insurance costs on the state as well as not meet minimum wage standards.
JoyceH
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Well, for probably half his labor force, the female half, they’re not back because they’re homeschooling their kids. And for all of them, how many of the younger labor force have managed to get their vaccines yet? Whatever safety protocols they’re using, masks necessarily come off in a restaurant. And not too many people are willing to die for even the nicest boss.
Baud
The supplemental UI ends in September. It’ll be interesting to see how the labor market responds.
I also wonder whether the child tax credit plays into this, in terms of giving parents more flexibility in choosing not to work right now.
John Revolta
@The Moar You Know: This. $15 an hour don’t mean much when they just hire a bunch of people and give ’em all 20 hours a week.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Brachiator:
?BillinGlendaleCA
@dr. bloor: I’m sure you paid Omnes for that. Keep in mind, he’s an attorney.
Mike in NC
I just recalled a comment by Paul Ryan years ago about the “safety net” being turned into a hammock for a legion of shiftless, lazy American workers.
WaterGirl
@Baud: More people should be vaccinated by then, and way more kids will be back in school, so even if that’s the case, I’m not sure how they can determine whether more people are at work because their kids are in school, or because day care is open, or because more people are vaccinated so it feels safer to go back to work.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
True.
BruceFromOhio
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I support this solution.
WaterGirl
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I think they should fucking have to live on 20k for a year and see how well that works for them.
Because these people only care when something affects them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@No name: that’s the thrust of this article
Mary G
The reason low wage workers are scarce is that we killed several hundred thousand of them with Covid. Supply and fucking demand, bitches. Excellent rant, John
ETA or what rikyah said
The Moar You Know
@Geminid: That was probably me. Don’t come looking to California voters of any party to help labor; we simply won’t do it. And California has weirdly always has a huge streak of contempt for working people, especially those on the lower end of the income ladder.
Another Scott
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’ve related before that in the early ’80s I worked for a company with about 50 pizza stores. They had their own commissary for the stores (buying headquarters-approved ingredients). I worked a shift in the evening, collecting ingredient orders from the stores for the next day and typing them into some AS/400 machine.
I remember seeing a breakdown of the cost of the ingredients for a small cheese pizza out to about 5 decimal places (they bought in huge quantities). It was something like $0.26. Twenty-six cents.
Now, that was a long time ago, and I’m sure it’s not that cheap now, but the point is that there can be very large profit margins in these businesses, at least for some parts of the food-chain (so to speak). Probably not for the 60-something who wanted to “be his own boss and own his own company” and bought a single franchise from GiantEvilIndustries and is working 90 hours a week to try to keep it going, but you have to figure the guys who have lots and lots of stores are doing it because it makes them lots and lots of money.
And, of course, JC’s larger point stands. Someone is paying for people to be able to come to work and make money for these MotUs. If it’s not from salaries, then it’s from various forms of public assistance and reduced efficiency and life expectancy that we all subsidize and pay for by living and working in America. Profitable businesses need to pay fair wages and not rely on taxpayers subsidizing their labor costs.
Cheers,
Scott.
Lyrebird
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Yeah Denver cost of living is kinda steep!
OT but in honor of the Blogfather’s righteous rant, here’s another from State Rep Rafael Anchia: schooling one of the Rs about their trying to extend the shameful history of disenfranchising Black voters on purpose…
bbleh
@Ken: oh noes, competition?!? For workers?!? That’s … un-American!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Mentioned downstairs but needs to be amplified. Granted, it’s the Congress that is elected in 2024 that will actually certify the 2024 election, but the point stands. They’ll tear this country apart and all of those new “anti-riot” laws will be used to jail protestors when their votes are invalidated and the election is stolen.
I never even thought of this possibility until I saw that tweet. I haven’t felt this anxious since Jan 20th. My instincts told me last year that we’ve only bought ourselves a reprieve and I was told I was being too negative here when I mentioned it.
If the Republicans don’t have any checks on them via elections, what will stop them from privatizing Social Security and looting it, for example? What will stop them from arresting Obama and Hillary for being “traitors”?
WaterGirl
@Mary G:
Essential workers. Expendable workers.Steeplejack
@Phylllis:
And “flexible hours” means that—after they get you hooked—they start telling you when they “need” you to work.
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I’m really not going to spend time speculating on dystopia for the next 3½ years. Defeating Trump and the GOP has its rewards. We know what’s at stake and how to stop them. We just have to do it.
WaterGirl
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): If there aren’t any checks on them, the country goes to hell and the experiment in democracy is over.
Instead of worrying about it, we all need to work every single fucking day to make sure that we win and that there are checks on them.
My suggestion:
Less worrying, more action. Figure out what you can do to ensure the results we want.
That means you. That means me. That means all of us. Every single one of us.
Brachiator
@Geminid:
Proposition 22 was a reaction to Assembly Bill AB5, which was crafted almost hand in hand by the California legislature and California labor unions. In short the bill sought where-ever possible to classify workers as employees and make them eligible for various worker protections.
Probably a ot of good intentions, but the legislation was so ham-fisted and expensive for small businesses that the legislature had to carve out all kinds of exceptions. But if you weren’t a big political contributor, your industry got left out.
If exceptions could not be carved out, the results were sometimes crappy. One example. If a newspaper or web site hired a columnist, that person had to be made an employee if they wrote more than 32 columns a year for the paper or site. The result was to fire a shitload of columnists, including people who preferred being free-lancers.
Prop 22 was an over-reaction to an over-reaction, but might not have gone on the ballot had the legislature been smarter in the first place.
The situation is still a mess for various reasons.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Scott:
I don’t want to make any sweeping generalizations, but anecdotally I’ve heard that fast-food franchises are a popular investments for rich people: doctors, dentists, lawyers. There’s a huge house (about 10K sq ft) in my town that took years to build, local gossip was the owners had more money than they knew what to do with and kept changing their minds about very expensive things. Another piece of gossip is that he’s a surgeon but the real money comes from the fifteen or so McDonald’s they own.
rikyrah
@WaterGirl:
Like you, I read her work stories and just want to visit with a large metal pipe???
WaterGirl
@Baud: I see we said the same thing. Yours was shorter and better of course.
Because it’s Saturday. Because it’s a day ending in Y.David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
“Liberal” CNN had some obnoxious, upper class English twit (with horrible mangled teeth) on complaining there aren’t enough people to serve him in exclusive Manhattan eateries.
They balanced that view with someone from the Financial Times complaining about not enough people will to work for slave wages in Montana . I guess the lazy, brain dead, elites all got the same lame gop talking points about Montana. A rural, white state with barely any meaningful population (ranks 43rd) is now the template for the whole country.
guachi
Update for the correct verbiage on the DQ sign: “Now hiring people who actually want to work.”
I will say the food (burger and fries for me) was actually quite good. And not “good for DQ” but legitimately good.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: You probably have the right idea. Your metal pipe surely weighs less than the 2×4 I was going to bring.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Yours was better because it was more constructive.
No name
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Thank you; I read this and see this happening with people I know. For me, the upheaval of the past year has made me think about many things but at the core is always time.
Mary G
@The Moar You Know: Yes, non-Californians will count on voters here voting blue on everything to their peril. There is a huge NIMBY culture, so anything, like demanding that Uber pay benefits, goes down in flames. “Uber is already too expensive” is a comment I heard in person. Trying to roll back Prop 13’s restrictions on commercial property taxes also went over like a lead balloon in 2020 because Dog forbid the nail salon raise the price of my mani-pedis.
dr. bloor
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Wait, he’s not a Nigerian prince? Fuuuuck.
WaterGirl
@guachi: That actually seems worse. Tell us what they say when you call to help them with the attitude adjustment the managers there obviously need.
May I suggest that next time you go, you bring a sign that says:
“I’m a dick. Come work for me.”
And tape it up next to the other sign.
Kay
Can’t they find this out, though? Why are they just speculating? How many people are receiving unemployment payments as a rough percentage of the estimated low wage workforce in a given area?
They’ve been bitching about this for weeks. Why are all these theories based on 13 people who claim to be employers on Twitter?
worn
@guachi: I think you should have asked to speak to the manager, offered 75¢ on the dollar for a burger & shake, and then when refused, proclaim loudly that “it is impossible to do business in this establishment because no one wants to sell.”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
The United States will become a much smaller and much, much poorer country.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I made my first contribution of the 2022 cycle today, to Shontel Brown.
JaySinWA
@WaterGirl: How would John ever know?
Kay
I still can’t figure out why I should be outraged about this. Lower wage people have some leverage and some extra money. I’m genuinely happy for them and I also think it’s good for me.
Let the great wheel of commerce spin! :)
I hope they enjoy themselves this summer after such a shitty year and buy some stuff, go to bars and restaurants, get their cars fixed, all sorts of great things.
WaterGirl
@JaySinWA: John reads BJ more than you guys think. This I know.
MisterForkbeard
The problem with wages isn’t limited to the service industry either. I work for one of the 20 biggest corporations on the planet, and a lot of our people are just hosed. These are skilled, trained software engineers with very specific skills sets that take a long time to train. The ‘rock star’ employees get reasonably taken care of, but I have a lot of good people in the Philippines. I maybe enough money in raises to distribute to do 2-3% raises for everyone every 18 months.
The yearly inflation rate is 3-4.5% there. If I even distributed that ‘new’ comp money, all of my employees there would still be losing money year over year. There are ways to fix this, too – index it to inflation, pay them in US constant dollars, etc. But corporate doesn’t want to do it, so everyone is just slowly getting screwed.
NotMax
@Baud
Amen. Defund dystopia.
;)
jl
@Brachiator: Sad mess. Trades that have required freelancing and one-off gigs with no employment relationship for, well, since forever, made a big stink at the time, but no one listened to them. The leg just kept adding more requirements and less flexibility, and then it started blowing up on them.
That said, I thought Prop 22 was a BS give away to lawless joints like Uber (I think they wrote most of it), and voted against it. And I read lawyers saying that it set some horrible precedents for labor law. And the state leg was, reluctantly and sullenly, taking out the worst provisions anyway.
Like a lot of choices we ‘lesser’ people are forced to make in the US recently, it was either worse or worser
Edit: there are workable solutions. One is the Nordic countries’ approach of generous social support for unemployed. Much less inefficient black letter law trying to dictate every little detail of employment relationship. Loss of a job creates much less hardship and less stigma, makes it easier to look for a new job, or take time off for some more training or education, get a technical certificate, etc.
rikyrah
@Baud:
good paying jobs that can’t be outsourced
90% won’t need a college degree
75% won’t need an Associates degree
ANd, useful skills
Citizen Alan
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I was very disappointed in the millennials when Boomer Remover became a meme. Obviously, the correct name should have been Boomer Doomer.
WaterGirl
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): You could donate to this:
National Democratic Redistricting Committee
The organization is spearheaded by Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder.
Brachiator
@dr. bloor:
As someone who has done accounting and taxes for a lot of restaurants, I will categorically say that this is nonsense.
And also note that I know and detest businesses that underpay and exploit workers. I can detail shitty practices that would make you howl with rage. Also, places like this also cheat their customers out of good products and services. It doesn’t stop with their workers.
There are a few commenters here who own or have owned restaurants and other small businesses. I hope they chime in.
Ken
Clearly we should all carry a marker and chalk, so we can add “for what I pay” to such signs.
Unsurprisingly, “for what I pay” still works. It’s kind of like the fortune-cookie game, where you add “in bed” to whatever the fortune says.
Kay
My son is not really a low wage worker, he’s a high school student, but he’s washing dishes in a restaurant and they are short handed. The pay is lousy though. Sub Wal Mart.
The owners are a Greek couple and they pick him up for work, probably to ensure he gets there- he’s a little drifty. Anyway, the husband calls him “my friend” (exclusively) and I told him “he doesn’t know your name”.
Probably true, too :)
Another Scott
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The guys that owned this 50-store pizza company were lawyers. It was handy because they were always having to send legal documents back and forth to headquarters.
Multitasking, so to speak…
Cheers,
Scott.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
Tell that to Joe Manchin and Sienma. That Manchin motherfucker is still talking as if “bipartisanship” is still relevant. He refuses to make any exceptions to the filibuster, even for voting rights! I think he and Sienma are just fucking fine with autocracy because they know they could just switch parties if they had to I bet
@WaterGirl:
Great advice, but what about the recent restrictive voting laws put in place, like in Georgia? What can any of us do, aside from violent revolt, to stop the state from simply ignoring election results they don’t like?
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
the DC media has been dying to manufacture a fake Biden scandal.
First it was “he went home for the weekend!”
Then it was “he hasn’t had a press conference!”
Then it was “but, but, …. bipartisanship!”
Then it was “da Boᴙd3r”
Now they’re trying UI benefits.
PsiFighter37
Being in the job I am in, I have heard many of these similar stories being passed around. I feel little sympathy for folks complaining about anecdotes of there being tons of unfilled jobs because of unemployment benefits being too high. Maybe that’s a sign that people aren’t willing to work shit hours for shit wages, especially when trying to juggle caring for family, looking after kids, or doing anything else in these times. I’m sure that’s not the message most of these types (who are in finance) want to hear, but I don’t care. I can take our business slowing down a bit if it means that there is a forced reassessment of how people are treated, and that work, as Uncle Joe likes to say, is treated with the kind of dignity it deserves – and that means being paid a fair wage without having to work multiple jobs or having to cut corners on other shit.
If that means that they are getting paid more to not take a job that is going to treat them poorly, more power to them. I have to imagine most of these ‘job creators’ are scared about UBI, just like they were all scared about the ACA, because it’s another way to divorce people from being tied to working shitty jobs solely for money, even if it’s not a living wage (or for healthcare benefits, as was the case for ACA). I am 100% for it, even if it is at my marginal expense.
jl
The basic problem here is that people just aren’t paying attention to the sayings of Jesus. If you squint and read between the lines, he really said ‘The laborer is an animal, and never worth the hire, so grind their faces in the dirt.’
I’ll get around to checking that in the New Testament one of these days.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: heh, long-ago volcanic-tempered pizza-place boss was notorious for calling employees he didn’t like by the wrong name. I used to wonder if he did it on purpose. I don’t wonder anymore
MagdaInBlack
@Kay: Homework is hard, Kay. ?
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
You do you.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I don’t think so. Reviewed lots of tax returns and don’t think I’ve seen any where a moderately high income client (earned income in the $500K range) invested in fast-food franchises. Lots of real estate LLCs.
WaterGirl
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
You are paying lip service by saying “great advice”, but you immediately go back to “what about?
Goku, you can scare yourself all day long, but that doesn’t do anything to help us with the fight against the Rs.
rikyrah
@Mary G: the
Remember, these were the same muthaphuckas ?who were screaming
OPEN THE ECONOMY???
The same muthaphuckas who wanted Moscow Mitch to block any second COVID-19 Relief Bill until he was able to add the
“Employers can kill you at will with no liability”?
Steeplejack
@JMG:
My Trader Joe’s friend noted today that the company has stopped their “hero pay” ($2-4 extra an hour) on the theory that now everyone has been vaccinated (or given the opportunity).
(She has passed her “two shots plus two weeks” point.)
PsiFighter37
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Looting Social Security will be the least of your worries if a GOP Congress overturns the will of the voters. Once they go full authoritarian, simply look at what has happened to Hungary under Viktor Orban to understand the shitpile the U.S. will become.
Geminid
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Well, I understand how beneficial a thriving working class is to those further up the economic ladder. And even if I were further up that ladder than I am, I hope I wouldn’t let these companies pull the wool over my eyes with a slick ad campaign.
And donors, many from California, dropped hundreds of millions of dollars last year on Democratic candidates and liberal causes. How and why were California’s gig workers left behind?
Another California commenter points out problems in the legislature’s treatment of independent contractors. I read about them at the time, and can see how the law was problematic. But that could be fixed by the legislature, without leaving so many gig workers out in the cold.
MagdaInBlack
Our President of US Operations recently put out a company video asking for suggestions for better retention of employees. Were it anonymous, I would suggest they take a stroll thru the company reviews on Indeed and Glassdoor and take a clue. It’s right there, over and over; Money, common courtesy, respect, work/life balance.
Eta: Also, no one above the shop level generates a dime of income, so who needs who? ( or is it whom?)
rikyrah
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I have donated to her, Kenyatta in Pennsylvania for Senate, and the former NC Supreme Court Justice for Senate.
jl
I read in the news that there is a big fight brewing between investors and CEOs of some restaurant chain over the $15 minimum wage. IIRC, the investors are seeing that companies can be more profitable paying more, keeping employees longer, getting more incentive for higher quality work. CEOs are digging in, since they are the management suits who never learned anything except how to grab cash and power by any means necessary.
Or maybe it is the other way around, and it’s greedy investors versus management which understands the business.
Applebees, or Denny’s or I don’t know… Cheesecake…?
guachi
@WaterGirl: it’s worse. The sign wasn’t taped to the window. It was the big sign outside the store under the DQ logo. I took a picture of you want it.
dr. bloor
@Brachiator: Pop quiz. How much does an owner pay for a $1.99 glass of Coke?
Now, I know you’re going to add in the cost of rent, etc., etc., but that just means the owner is a shitty business person. If you can’t make money selling 29 cent drinks for two bucks, your business model is wrong or you’re shitty at your job. If you get tanked because your employees are sampling and giving away samples, you should be looking for a new line of work.
Elizabelle
The Vax Live concert is on now. https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/how-to-watch-vax-live
ETA: Her up now. Like her a lot.
Mary G
@rikyrah: Yes, it’s major karma. All the red states screaming bloody murder about restrictions when NY and CA were dying had to do was stay closed and contact trace and they could have reopened once the vaccines kicked in and paid the same crappy wages. Oh well.
Gravenstone
@PsiFighter37: Please don’t encourage him.
jl
Besides the Bible, it is also important to remember that the communist spy and thug, who hated freedom, Adam Smith, said that you could measure the prosperity of a country by walking its streets and observing whether the laborers and small business owners were busy, content and prosperous.
So, for a properly functioning free market system, we want to watch carefully for warning signs of an imminent catastrophe like that.
Edit: Adam Smith was the same Stalinist who said that banks and ‘projectors’ (the word for speculators and scammers at the time) had to be watched and regulated very strictly, because they like to cheat people and each other by routinely kiting checks.
Steeplejack
Relevant thread, with actual on-the-ground reporting!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@rikyrah:
Cheri Beasley. I heard she entered the race, not much else. I guess it’s still pretty early days.
Tazj
I’m sure there are good people who run businesses who treat their employees well and are willing to raise wages, but they’re not the ones featured on my local tv news or newspaper. All I’ve seen are restaurant owners complaining about unemployment benefits on tv, with little to no coverage about why workers might be hesitant to return to work.
It’s difficult to have sympathy for employers when they’ve had their pick of employees for years and haven’t had to pay them a living wage.
WaterGirl
@guachi: With the magnetic letters? I would definitely call to complain.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: Someone pointed out in a comment earlier that it would be good to see where the donations were going.
karensky
@WaterGirl: I am not in charge but Yass!
PsiFighter37
@jl: Most management running Fortune 500 companies do not understand how to see past what research reports are saying their price should be, or hitting targets that trigger compensation incentives. Nobody actually listens to what Warren Buffett says (although he has been a bit of a hypocrite over the past decade – outsourcing the dirty work of merging Kraft and Heinz to Brazilian hedge funders), or seeing what a company that does right by its employees, like Costco, does to the stock price in the long term. Frankly, it will only get worse – look at what the retail investor these days in my age demographic or younger cares about. They care about shit like Dogecoin or Gamestop ‘mooning’ without giving two shits about why. It’s a degenerative race to the bottom for how quick anyone, from the CEO to the average Joe, can make a buck.
sukabi
@HypersphericalCow: True, but you know they’ll “improve the quarter pounder by making it a .19 pounder while retaining the name….Quarter Pounder*
.
.
.
.
* Pre cooked weight with 3 large ice cubes on yhe scale….
Steeplejack
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
There are a lot of factors in play. One big one might be that restaurant workers, who tend not to have health insurance, don’t want to be working in a public-facing environment in the middle of a pandemic and run the risk of getting very sick.
Also, as others have pointed out, maybe they no longer have child care for their kids and have to do that themselves. Or their kids’ school is “virtual” and they have to be home with the kids.
Or (anecdata alert): When I first started giving my Trader Joe’s friend a ride to and from work in March 2020, it was because D.C. Metro had slashed rail and bus service and her 15-minute rail commute was turning into a 90-minute ride on multiple buses, with much less convenient timing and sometimes no ride at all at the end of a late shift. And that at a time when we didn’t know how contagious the virus was or exactly how it was transmitted.
jl
@PsiFighter37:
Looks like you are correct, it is CEO management that are being A-holes.
Denny’s Shareholders Revolt After Top Exec Concedes $15 Minimum Wage Won’t Hurt Business
BY JULIA ROCK, THE DAILY POSTER ON 5/5/21
” Citing a Newsweek report, Denny’s shareholders are demanding that the restaurant chain end its membership in the National Restaurant Association, halt all lobbying efforts against legislation to eliminate a subminimum wage for tipped workers, and start paying all its workers at least a full minimum wage.”
https://www.newsweek.com/dennys-shareholders-revolt-after-ceo-concedes-15-minimum-wage-wont-hurt-business-1588970
Looks like Denny’s management have been ideologically driven and stupid A-holes who’ve been hurting the profits of their own company for a long time. I also saw a story from 2015 where the Denny’s CEO said that raising the wages of their employees would also raise crime. From the quotes I saw, the CEO was emitting incoherent deranged babble.
PsiFighter37
I will admit that when I saw this blog title at first, I wondered if we were talking about the UK’s center-left party taking yet another shit in elections (they did quite poorly in Thursday’s local elections, as well as losing yet another seat in Parliament they used to own in the north of England).
sukabi
@guachi: just make an addendum
No one wants to work here for shitty wages and bad management.9
Mary G
? Then there’s these guys:
Steeplejack
@Nobody in particular:
What is LVT? And BIG?
jl
@PsiFighter37: ” look at what the retail investor these days in my age demographic or younger cares about. They care about shit like Dogecoin or Gamestop ‘mooning’ without giving two shits about why. ”
Well, you read histories of defunct empires who thought they were the pinnacle of excellence, brilliance, and power, in the entire past and future history of the multiverse. And after their sad and decadent collapses, we look back at them and they all seem as crazy and smart as drunk loons.
Edit: apologies for insulting loons who have drinking problems. Life is hard out by the lakeside.
PsiFighter37
@jl: Most of these folks are not ideologically driven. Having gone to business school (as an undergraduate), I can tell you that considerations about the impact on stakeholders, as opposed to shareholders, is virtually nonexistent. Therefore, the financial analysis inherently devolves to hitting targets, as opposed to trying to think about how treating employees well is hard to quantify but can have quantifiable benefits if you choose to pay them well and engender true loyalty outside of marketing and management gimmicks.
In my 4 years, there was one class I took that was meant to look at stakeholders instead of shareholders, and it was a bit of a joke. The group final project topic, for us (I forget how this was assigned) ended up being about whether or not prostitution should be legal or not. One might be able to argue that there is a business rationale to take away, but it was treated more like an abstract moral / ethical dilemma at best. The people who get credentialized to run these companies don’t think about this shit at all. Only a small handful do, and most of them are ignored – otherwise, Dan Smith would be getting a lot more attention about what he did with his small/mid-sized payments processing business out in Seattle.
Baud
@PsiFighter37:
Yeah, that’s something.
WaterGirl
@Mary G:
“No questions asked.”
I am crying.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: I wondered, too, but I was too lazy to ask.
Elizabelle
Eddie Vedder and band ripping through “Corduroy”; it’s pretty unrecognizable. Taking a page from Mr. Dylan.
Nobody in particular
@jl:
The Ideological Fraud of Adam Smith.
Marx quoted Smith more than anyone, I think.
Adam Smith or Karl Marx?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
You didn’t actually address what I said about Manchin. He’s going to fuck us over. Tell me how I’m wrong, dude, because I’d really like to be
@WaterGirl:
I’m simply looking at the facts and the odds. Historically, the president’s party always gets hosed in the midterms. The R’s will probably win the House through redistricting alone, let alone voter suppression. Then all legislation will come to a screeching halt. With R’s in control of the House for 2024, they won’t certify a Dem for President, assuming they win in the EC. As Kay has noted, they’re only getting worse. They’ll continue to get worse.
I can’t see how this ends well, sorry. I just feel hopeless
PsiFighter37
@Baud: It’s basically the equivalent of what has happened in the US – the former industrial, unionized base of the party has gone complete culture war (or in the UK’s case, complete pro-Brexit) and are voting for the people who would stomp on them if it meant they got paid extra. I thought Starmer would be miles better than Corbyn, but it seems like the bleeding there has only gotten worse.
While Brexit has been (and will continue to be) a disaster for the UK, David Cameron may have unwittingly sealed Tory dominance of the country for a generation by calling that referendum and managing to be on the losing side. Labour will forever rue the day that Ed Miliband thought it was a good idea to shiv his older brother in the back and win the party leadership election in 2010, and Nick Clegg, soulless fuck that he is (working at Facebook now) may wonder why he decided that his left-leaning party (Liberal Democrats) thought it would be a good idea to go into coalition with the Tories instead of with Labour after the 2010 election.
Lots of bad decision-making in that country that mirrors a lot of what happened here. The UK and US have been close mirror images of each other for 40 years.
wvng
The Pilgrims poultry plant in Moorefield is desperately starting people at $15/hr, $3000 starting bonus, 4 day work week.
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I don’t do predictions. If you want to wet your bed over Manchin, that’s your business.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@dr. bloor: He’s a Madisonian prince.
jl
@Nobody in particular: I remember reading a history of economic thought in which the author blamed Adam Smith for proposing hypotheses that Marx adopted as true, and used as a basis for his critique of capitalism. (Smith’s proposal for a labor theory of value).
Odie Hugh Manatee
I second, third and fourth your rant. Walmart and other companies have been making the government pick up the lack of pay with food stamps, WIC and such. You shouln’t be working a 40 hour work week and qualify for food stamps and rent subsidies. This practice has allowed companies to shove off some of their labor expenses to the government, freeing more money for their pockets.
Fuck’em, they can pay the workers a living wage or go out of business. If they do, someone else will come along and fill the gap with a business that works. All my life I have heard the whining about how it’s the end of the economic world when the rare minimum wage increase passes.
It never ends and it won’t this time either.
trollhattan
“Look at my business plan.”
“That is a shitty business plan.”
“This business plan is successful everywhere, I am following it, and that’s final!”
“The business plan relies on bad policy.”
“Why is big government killing my business plan!?!”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: Just the Cliff Notes version.
Mary G
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Dude, this isn’t even true. Stop driving yourself crazy with worst case scenarios and get your ass working for the Ohio Democratic Party so you can take Portman’s Senate seat. This is just mental masturbation with no useful function. You are playing Putin’s game for him by giving up in advance.
PsiFighter37
@Mary G: To be fair, it is hard to get excited about Tim Ryan. He’s a douche of the highest magnitude. I am curious if Pelosi tells Chuck to figure out a way to get a majority somewhere else and holds resources back, given how much animosity there must be between those two.
jl
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): ” I can’t see how this ends well, sorry. I just feel hopeless ”
Getting shit done to improve the lives of ordinary people can change things bigly and quickly. Biden wants to do that and knows how to bring together a diverse group to max the chances of doing that.
We only need to skim off a few percent of disaffected Democrats who stay home, high minded independents and a few of the remaining salvageable Republican voters, and we can win.
Obama took a chance that maybe some GOPers would work with him, and even though he changed course after being repeatedly scorned and betrayed, he lost precious time. Biden was a willing part of that experiment, he watched and learned some lessons.
Giving into to despair won’t solve anything.
Nobody in particular
@Steeplejack:
Land Value Taxation. Georgism.
BIG is Basic Income Guarantee.
Apologies for the Acronym Salad. Even Hayek begrudgingly approved of it for which Walter Blockhead accused him of socialism. Friedman wanted to do it during Nixon’s admin.
A negative income tax, he called it. Uncle Milty was a strange one. He called the LVT “the least bad tax” because to Uncle, all taxes are bad. Nixon nixed it as too “socialist.” Milty repaid him by calling him the “most socialist president of the 20th Century.”
Starfish
@rikyrah: Maybe about 20% of them worked somewhere. The rest were older. This hit people in care facilities so very very hard.
Another Scott
@PsiFighter37: Nancy “Just Win Baby” Pelosi? I don’t think she works that way.
Yeah, sometimes she jumps ahead and endorses new favorites over incumbents (Kennedy / Markey), but once the primary is over she’s all-in.
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Goku, we are not helpless victims. We have agency. We can get discouraged and take a break, but then we need to pick ourselves up and get back to the fight.
This fight is for everything. For all the marbles. Just like it was in November 2020.
Seriously, get busy working toward the future you want, and you won’t have all this time to worry.
In 2007-2008, I was in Iowa working my butt off for Barack Obama for 14 days before the upcoming primary on Jan 3. We were literally so busy that we didn’t have time to worry. We were up early in the morning and worked til late evening and then we collapsed into bed and did the same thing again the next day.
It was only that last afternoon, when the 6-8am standing with signs to remind people to vote while they were on their way to work was done, when the last literature about where to vote was hung on the last doorknob, when we had bought all the food for the caucus and we had a couple of hours before it was time to set up for the caucus, that we had time to worry.
If people like me had sat out and said “Barack Obama can never win this, there’s no point” the outcome might have been different.
It’s the same thing now, Goku. You have to choose whether you want to worry, worry worry and spin yourself up with all the “what ifs” or if you want to be part of the solution.
But if you choose to continue the worry, worry, worry route, I’m really out of patience for that. I don’t need to read comments that are going to cause me to worry, so if you are comfortable living in worry mode, then I will just wish you well and skip your comments.
NotMax
@Mary G
Yup. Playing the same old song.
:)
jl
@Nobody in particular: Hard to think of an eminent economist who was so correct and responsible on some things, and so wrong and irresponsible on others.
Another Scott
@Nobody in particular:
True? Bill with poison pill? Trojan Horse? No idea.
Cheers,
Scott.
Starfish
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I think the interest rate on housing needs to be pushed back up because this thing in the Denver Metro area with housing prices going up 10% annually is not going to work out for buyers or for retired folks who can’t pay their tax bills.
Mary G
@Another Scott: Yeah, Nancy SMASH would support anything up to and including an undead zombie if it was leading in the polls. And I doubt she has much say, let alone control, in how Democratic Senate campaigns are funded. She’ll have enough work to do on the House.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
Sorry, I’m not from that part of the future.
Nobody in particular
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I don’t see it ending well either, but I don’t think all is lost, not yet. Don’t despair.
I’ve said it before, I would have suspended habeas like Lincoln did this month 160 years ago, but we elected Biden so I’ll let him do his thing. Lincoln could see General Lee’s plantation across the river in Virginia from the WH. But they never did make it into the Capitol, until 160 years later. FDR and W both did it as well. It’s in the Constitution. Article 1. Section 9? eh, too lazy to check.
Bromodor
Here in the “right to work” paradise of South Carolina, our enlightened governor McMaster has decided to opt out of all federally funded special Covid relief unemployment programs, including the $300 weekly extra payment, and the 51 week coverage extension, reverting to our normally stingy 20 weeks and maximum benefit of $326.00 weekly. In doing so, he will be declining somewhere in the neighborhood of $600 million in order to keep his wannabe plantation owner supporters happy and force workers to return to their jobs. Nice rant, John, and spot on.
WaterGirl
@Bromodor: I am so angry that they are doing that, and I don’t even live in any of the states that are heading in that direction.
Screwing the people they were elected to serve. Seems like the anger would be enough to make people spontaneously combust.
jl
@Another Scott: Friedman’s BIG (as ‘Nobody’ calls it) was a serious proposal. Versions of it have been supported by good economists of diverse ideological backgrounds.
Yang’s is a mess. Not enough money to help those who need it most. I’ve read that he wants to divert funds from other public programs to finance it, and some of it depends on the kindness of rich philanthropists. It’s quarter-baked BS, and I thought his version always has been quarter-baked BS back to his vanity presidential campaign.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl:
We got no rain, lake’s dry. Solved the loons drinking problem.
Fair Economist
@rikyrah
Then there’s the millions with Long Covid.
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle:
I’m music-ed out after spending way too much time today on that Stereogum “Billboard hits” page!
Starfish
@JoyceH: It is easier to get vaccines here in Colorado than in some other places, and there is a ton of effort going out to make sure people who want them get them. For the next several weeks, our school district is going to help people on Mondays at some of the most impoverished schools with the most diversity sign up for the vaccine if they want to.
Fair Economist
@PsiFighter37: Hoyer has at least twice tried to dethrone Pelosi, and both times they’ve immediately returned to working together after he failed. Pelosi seems remarkably able to put past differences aside and I don’t think she’d have any trouble with Senator Tim Ryan.
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: ” We got no rain, lake’s dry. ”
Pix on that, or GTFO.
Edit: BillinGlendaleCA is an economist, and as another crook in that racket, I’d like to point out the unique approach of economists to solving problems.
Nobody in particular
@Another Scott: It was Milton Freidman. He was Nixon’s Econ maven. Actually, it was probably Robert Owen or Thomas Paine in Agrarian Justice, years before any of them. In fact, the ancient Greeks even but that requires some unpacking. Many different names for the same thing.
PsiFighter37
@jl: Andrew Yang is half-baked BS. I am more successful than he has been in his career. As the NYT pointed out (undoubtedly because they are carrying water for Eric Adams or some other candidate), they ran a critical article that pointed out that despite being called a ‘tech entrepreneur’, his greatest business success (which isn’t even that much) came neither in the technology space or as an entrepreneur at a firm he started.
Another Scott
@jl: I really, really hope Yang flames out badly enough that he never runs for major office again. It looks like he’s slipping in the polls (Google tells me that Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams is leading now). Politics is important and experienced leaders are needed in important positions…
Cheers,
Scott.
Sure Lurkalot
“Working poor”. Time to make it oxymoronic. My only hope is for Joe to step on the gas and get the infrastructure legislation passed
Nobody in particular
@jl: Friedman wanted to term it a Negative Income Tax.
Oy!
LeftCoastYankee
Generally, if your first reaction to a crisis is “I’ve tried nothing and I’m all out of ideas”, you probably shouldn’t be running your own business.
It seems that until children are reliably back in school (which probably also means vaccinated), “childcare” now includes school work, or unexpected quarantining because your kid’s classmate caught the virus. Expecting parents with children to return to jobs with old “flexible” schedules with shitty pay and no “PTO” is really fucking delusional.
Geminid
@PsiFighter37: I wonder long Speaker Pelosi holds a grudge. Kathleen Rice (NY) joined Ryan and Seth Moulton in their little rebellion against Pelosi November 2018. That session, former prosecutor Rice was denied the Judiciary Commitee seat she wanted. But this winter, on the recommendation of Caucus leadership, Rice was voted a coveted seat on the powerful Energy and Commerce Commitee.
Good Catholic that she is, Pelosi may be ready to release Tim Ryan from purgatory. If Schumer and Ohio Reps like Joyce Beatty vouch for Ryan’s electability, I think she will.
A well-known story concerning New Jersey Representative Marcie Sherrill bears repeating here. Like some other Democrats trying to flip red seats in 2018, Sherrill pledged not to vote for Pelosi for Speaker. The two met during the campaign, and when Sherrill started to bring up that pledge, Pelosi cut Sherrill off. “Don’t worry about that,” Pelosi told her. “Just win, baby!”
jl
@PsiFighter37: @Another Scott:
I’ve read that the NYC race this year is a complete train wreck. That is too bad. But I’ve lived in SF long enough to assure that somehow the city will muddle through, since that is your standard issue type of election around here.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@jl:
@Mary G:
@Baud:
Part of me knows you all are right that despair is no solution. I don’t know, I’d feel a hell of a lot better if Manchin/Sinema would pull their heads out of their asses and help pass voting rights legislation
John Cole
@JaySinWA: I read the comments foo
Feathers
There is an important need for someone to do follow up reporting on all of these stories of business owners who can’t find workers about how many employees they killed during the pandemic. Word gets around about these sorts of things, but probably not as far as the newsroom.
Something was lost when reporter jobs began going to journalism majors, rather than also having a track for street smart high school grads who could write well.
jl
@Nobody in particular: That was marketing on Friedman’s part. On macro, and he had enough macro understanding to know income distribution is a macro issue, he made big and permanent contributions to good policy.
On libertarian approach to microeconomics, Friedman was a mess. I think he eventually went kind of insane from the fame that dog and pony show brought his way though.
Before he went over the edge into hucksterism, Friedman understood he was bridging two different ideological worlds and had to market to both of them.
His Chicago School ultra free market BS he peddled to the dictators in So America was after he was deranged IMHO.
jl
@John Cole: Well, that was some wisdom from the blog warlord out of the blue. Har har.
Another Scott
@Nobody in particular: I remember Uncle Miltie. :-) What I was getting at was how serious Nixon’s support or opposition to BIG/UBI was. (Twitter dick_nixon is occasionally surprising, but he does seem to have a good handle on Nixon’s positions.)
Wikiville:
Nixon was a master of getting in front of the runaway stage coach of things that he saw as inevitable (given the Democratic majorities in Congress) and trying to nudge them more to his liking. I wouldn’t be surprised if he proposed a UBI/BIG/GAI that was quite different from what others were proposing…
It’s amazing how large majorities in Congress can shift the debate, isn’t it??
(sigh)
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Nobody in particular
@Another Scott:
Wage and price controls! Nixon was a Commie!
Franklin was as convinced and even the first to propose a Labor Theory of Value. 1731
Matt McIrvin
@Steeplejack:
It takes at least six weeks to get fully vaccinated with the Moderna vaccine. Many states only opened vaccination to all adults on April 19th. That’s May 30th at the absolute earliest.
J R in WV
@Nobody in particular:
Interesting comment, I have some questions… What is “LVT”?
I guess the last T stands for tax, but the F is LV standing for?
Next, who the F is WFB, Jr??
Last, what does “With a BIG” mean>?? I know some guys who are Big from locker room experiences, etc, but I’m also sure that isn’t what you are trying to indicate here.
I’ll stop here, the whole comment seems opaque, even if I knew what the acronyms meant, but I don’t care enough to ask you to explicate what the hell you’re trying to say…
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack: Nicole stole our Saturdays!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Starfish:
That’s how we got Prop 13 here in California.
Ksmiami
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Denver is a super hot market in food service because the talent is also shifting to the legal weed industry and restaurants have a super hard time retaining workers esp pastry chefs.
Cameron
@Nobody in particular: Yoyoyo – y’all ain’t going back thousands of years into that Hudson/Graeber debt thang, are you? (Not that there’s anything wrong with it)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: Didn’t you see my pix from Barker Dam in OTR?
dnfree
@Another Scott: AS/400! Sniff…favorite system I ever programmed on in my 45-year career…sniff…thanks for the mention.
Nobody in particular
@J R in WV: Land Value Taxation.
Labor Theory of Value, same 3 letters. How odd?
BIG is one of the various names for a guaranteed minimum income for all. Basic Income Guarantee
William F. Buckley Jr. Mr. Conservative allegedly. Cameron hates him but I find him amusing and he was a Georgist! LVT = Georgism but all the Framers were proto Georgists. Probably even Hamilton. Shhh! Don’t tell anyone. Idiot historians appear to have been trying to keep it a secret.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@guachi: Tell the owner he needs to man up, stop blaming others and put his backborn in it like a big boy.
This isn’t just about money. The owners doing all the bitching about lazy workers and customers who are addicted to the quarantine have spent the last year hiding in their houses out in the country side and doing it by skype and are utterly terrified of going back to the office. There is a huge amount of projection in all this.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@WaterGirl:
I understand and I’m sorry. I’ll try to be better about that from now on
Another Scott
@dnfree: :-D
It was a funny business. They had an AS/400 backend and Macs everywhere in the front-end. Lots of computing horsepower for “just a pizza store”.
Whoops, I see that I messed up the timeline. I was working there in the late ’80s, not the early ’80s. (The Mac wasn’t released until 1984…)
Exciting times in computers!
Cheers,
Scott.
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: “Didn’t you see my pix from Barker Dam in OTR?”
Hey, dude, I’m a busy person with things to do and people to see. I aint had time to check that post out yet.
Thanks, I’ll go look.
Ksmiami
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): look at the bright side there’s always potential for violent backlash. Remember we do outnumber the cretins and we can shut it all down if necessary
Nobody in particular
@Cameron:
Lay it on me, mate! I can’t read everything without your help!
David Graeber? Point me to it. And I don’t find you anti-social.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
You’re joking of course. That would be far to permissive (and logical) for Gaetz. No, President Gaetz’s first executive order (who signing will be delayed due to Gaetz being unable to find the Oval Office for the three days) will be titled “Get American Back to Work” and instruct FBI to arrest anyone on unemployment or disability insurance. David Broder will hail Gaetz for his out of the box, if controversial solution to the problem.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: You don’t start your Wednesday morning gazing in admiration of my photos? I’m…disappointed…
Steeplejack
@Matt McIrvin:
Golly, you can’t be suggesting that Trader Joe’s is being, what’s that word, disingenuous?
Ksmiami
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): infect Republicans with Covid? I mean they set themselves up for it? GOP is worthless
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle:
I made the mistake of starting chronologically and didn’t stop until I collapsed in early 1962. I’m scared to go back, but I know that I must.
Steeplejack
@Ksmiami:
Mmm, loaded pastries . . .
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Which is ideal conditions for COVID to spread. COVID spreading threw crowed, multi-generation homes what was going on in LA last winter. It’s quite likely a lot of your friends former workers are dead or crippled.
Ksmiami
@Steeplejack: Covid donuts to the unmasked and unvaxxed- celebrate “freedumb”. See, GOP is ruthless but dumb, we are more creative so…
Cameron
@Nobody in particular: Well, I have both “….and forgive them their debts” by Hudson and “Debt: The first 5,000 years” by Graeber. They did correspond and share ideas. Being a lazy non-reader, I’ve read part of Hudson and none of Graeber. As you probably know, Dr. Graeber passed away at a pretty young age. Being an anarchist, he brought another point of view to the discussion of how to build the good society. I guess that’s the main reason I don’t get more involved politically, since the market for anarchism is pretty bare. And, yes, I’m an anti-social SOB.
Nobody in particular
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
That was the lie Jarvis-Gann fed Californians. And why I’m not entirely convinced that’s a good way to do the business of the state. And most retired folks I know don’t want to stay in a big house. Gated communities with lots to do and people to socialize with. When Arnold became Gov. Warren Buffet was an advisor. He told Arnie Prop 13 needed to be repealed. Da Terminator told Warren not to ever mention it again or he’d make him do push-ups. Sad but true. Many of you own your own homes. Nothing changes under this. It’s not aimed at you or even a person with a few rentals. We are looking for bigger fish to fry. It’s all just bookkeeping, really.
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack: Yeah, chronologically seemed the way to go. I did not (yet!). The guy is an engaging writer, and the commenters add a lot too.
Will be fun, and more than we wanted to know about a lot of the songs.
Unknown territory for some of us, who were listening to the FM band, not AM, and missed (pretty much) the 80s, apparently.
Starfish
@WaterGirl: You are the best.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yes, and they sure as hell weren’t MBAs working by skype out of their summer homes.
J R in WV
@WaterGirl:
Goku has finally crossed my final line – he’s now permanently in the pie safe, because I have decided he is a troll, always asking questions. He is a Sea Lion Troll, and pretty good at it, but I no longer believe he’s a grad of nursing school, nor that he works checkout at a grocery store.
I neither know nor care what Goku does to earn a living, could work in St Petersburg, RU for all I care, but I’m not going to read his inane questions any more.
Duh, bro, have you ever heard of Google? Ask Google if you have a stupid question, not me, not us.
Nobody in particular
@Cameron:
No, my friend, you are an RSI. Reclusive social isolate. Like Einstein once remarked as he got up in years, he enjoyed the solitude that drives young people mad. We’d both be good astronauts.
Check out Bob Black if you can find his stuff on the net. I’ll see what I have. He’s my kind of anarchist. If it’s the same Graeber, and I thought he was just a lawyer. He lived a little north of me. I spoke to him on the phone once, shortly before he died.
The DSM-Vr does not define an antisocial type in a very nice way. It’s up there with Malignant Narcissism and sociopathy.
Starfish
@Nobody in particular: I thought that Arnold Schwarzenegger himself poured a lot of his own money into buying real estate so he and his friends may be benefiting from it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Starfish: You have to own your own home for twenty years to get Prop 13 protection. That would have been property Arnold bought in the 80s.
Nobody in particular
@Starfish: I’m sure, that’s why he didn’t want to repeal Prop. 13.
https://www.kpbs.org/news/2018/oct/25/birth-californias-taxpayer-revolt/
And the pandemic has heated up the debate, as I hoped.
J R in WV
@Tazj:
My grandfather had a business with at least a couple of hundred employees… he also disliked unions, but had a unique method for keeping them out of his work force.
He paid more than union scale to his experienced workers! Imagine that — pay more. Never had any more union trouble after that!
ETA: Wife and I are retired now, but were both unions members all our working life, Wife was actually elected officer in her union.
Cameron
@Nobody in particular: DSM-Vr flatters me – I didn’t know I had all these qualities! David Graeber was an anthropologist, as I recall at Yale and (?) London School of Economics. Bob Black is not familiar to me, but I’ll check him out; somewhat familiar with Bill Black. Will confess I find Kevin Carson interesting, since he seems to follow Proudhon’s idea of building the revolution from within. I don’t see where violent revolutions work out very well for most people.
Nobody in particular
@J R in WV:
There are, and even some very good landlords, too. Few and far between but I’ve met some. Avarice is one of the 7 Deadly Sins. And Gluttony. Liberalism is one of the 7 Virtues.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Nobody in particular: Hi, the CA in my nym is for California, a state, with the exception of 3 years in gradual school in Seattle, that I’ve lived in since birth. There was a legitimate problem with property taxation in California in 1978. Housing prices were increasing at swift rate and folk on fixed income were having problems keeping up as assessments were increasing the property tax. I was here at the time, and in fact it was on the ballot in the first election I voted in. I voted against it, since I thought it was bad law and would have unintended consequence down the road. My parents, on the other hand, voted for it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: No, that’s not the case.
Nobody in particular
@Cameron:
“The natural wage of labor is the product.”
Yes, Kevin. We had a discussion years ago online when people could still debate reasonably with one another. We were discussing FDR and Kevin suggested he allowed the Japanese to bomb Pearl Harbor to get us into the war. A conspiracy theory I suspect will rise from the dead any day now. The problem with that thesis is why would FDR lose all his Battleships just for that? The carriers were more important but not everyone was convinced at that time. As it was I was hanging about Col. Pat Lang’s blog, where I ran into Dr. Silverman first. Col. Lang posted a story about the USS Panay. His father served on the Panay when the Japanese bombed it in 1937. FDR was pres then and if he really wanted to get into a war with Japan…
But Kevin is very bright. I learned about Tucker from Kevin.
The natural wage of labor is the product.”
Benjamin Tucker
Nobody in particular
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I know Glendale. Down south. I’ve been here since I left Manhattan in 1969. I think your parents can be forgiven, and that is my concern about some direct democracy, like ballot props. Sophists are hired to convince the people to vote against their own economic interests. Your instincts to vote no were right on, if I may say so. And, nothing has changed and the rents just keep on going up. When young people turn 18 here, they are looking at roomies or moving to X. It’s tough.
Nobody in particular
@Cameron:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/author/bob-black
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: Applause. And thanks. For Iowa, among other things.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Nobody in particular: I agree that propositions, especially ones that alter that state constitution, are a bad idea, easily highjacked by hucksters and special interests; but there was a real problem with property taxes in 1978 and my parents reaction was well within their self interest. The way it was marketed was to lower folks property taxes, which it did for folk who held on to their property long term, it just had other provisions with a lot of adverse long term consequences.
Nobody in particular
As far as I know, Cameron our Revolution was the first in which all the leaders died peacefully in their own beds of old age. As Franklin said, we must surely all hang together or we shall surely hang separately.
Words to that effect. If anyone can think of others, chime in. I wonder if Castro and his Cadre could make the club.
Nobody in particular
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I’m glad that, as someone mentioned, you had to own the property for 20 before the lower tax rate kicks in, lest it becomes a feeding and flipping frenzy of speculators and carpetbaggers. Matt Yglesias wrote this little Ebook very inexpensive, borrowing that fellow’s tagline: The Rent is Too Damn High!. Some good research and insights actually. Quick read, a couple of hours. Even Adam Smith said a special tax should be applied to Landlords. They make money in their sleep. Churchill said that, as well as lots of others. Winston was a Georgist, Clarence Darrow, Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, how much time have you got? Rent and vacancy controls work.
The Moar You Know
@J R in WV: I arrived at the same conclusion last year. He has a knack for derailing really important threads (and this is one of the most important that’s been on this here blog in quite some time) with his bullshit millenial having a panic attack schtick. If it’s not deliberate trolling it is indistinguishable from it.
Soprano2
@Bromodor: I look for Parson in MO to follow suit pretty soon with unemployment benefits. As for this topic, I’ve addressed it in other threads. It’s definitely more complicated than the extra unemployment, but it’s not as easy to raise wages as some of you think it is. The restaurant/bar industry is dealing with a lot of cost uncertainty right now, too. Oh, and that guy at DQ is an ASSHOLE. What kind of employee does he think he’ll get with a sign like that? He’s performing.
craigie
@PsiFighter37:
That would have been The Labour Freakout
The Pale Scot
@jl:
Economics:
The Pale Scot
@jl:
He will from this time on be forever known as
Steeplejack (phone)
yellowdog
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Likewise.
Ruckus
JC
Have been off the blog all day so I’m just catching up and haven’t read the comments.
But.
I learned long ago that MBA really stands for Must Be Asshole.
That can be reprogramed out. With a lot of effort. I’ve seen it done – sort of, once. The problem is that if they went into the program as an asshole, all they got was a nice polish job on the asshole part and no amount of effort will wash that that polish off. If they went in without the asshole part being the major trait of the personality it was difficult but doable, but often not worth the effort. If asshole was a very, very minor trait, with effort, luck and perseverance, the majority of asshole could be removed. And if there was no asshole at the start, they would have failed to earn the degree, Must Be Asshole in the first place.
Cameron
@Nobody in particular: Thanks!
HeartlandLiberal
FWIW, we drove past the local McDonalds that is a couple miles from us a few days ago, and observed a sign outside declaring jobs available, $15 / hr. This may finally be seeping into the thick skulls of the plutocrats. This in Bloomington, Indiana.
Low Key Swagger
I’m sure this is a dead thread…but a quick couple of things: Some of the reluctance to work these lower end jobs isn’t at all based on the pay. It’s that we’ve stopped valuing the people who do what we’ve determined to be menial jobs. Fast food workers, janitors, maids, etc. get little to no respect for the work they do from either their employers or the general public.
As a former restaurant owner, I can tell you the mark up on food isn’t much, and it is threading a needle to make money just offering food. Had I not had a liquor license, I would have closed my doors after the first year. That’s where the mark-up is.
Uncle Cosmo
I worked at the Mickey Dee on Wise Ave in Dundalk so long ago[1] that the place was an old-style Golden Arches with no seating at all that sold no meat but burgers and made fries from scratch. So long ago that the Corporation hadn’t even gotten around to (arguably) stealing the concept of the Gino’s Giant (itself a derivation of the Powerhouse sandwich at Ameche’s[2]), tweaking it slightly, and rebranding it the Big Mac. That’s how long ago. Anyhow:
Staff got 15 minutes off every 4 hours to eat, and we were free to partake of as much of “the inventory” as we wanted – with the proviso that we did it using no McD cups or wrappers.[3]
My customary midshift menu was a pair of Double Cheeseburgers[4] grabbed straight from the grill and a strawberry “clayshake” mixed in a plastic cup I brought from home & stashed on a shelf with everyone else’s liquid receptacles. Hey, I wasn’t even 18 yet – infarcts were the age of the universe in my future…
[1] So long ago my starting hourly (minimum) wage in those pre-Psycholithic (Stoned Age) daze was the equivalent in 2020 dollars of $9.91.
[2] Before Alan Ameche and Gino Marchetti were business partners they were the fullback and top defensive end of the legendary Baltimore Colts 1958-59 NFL championship team. Those guys were our heroes!
[3] I was given to understand that in those prehistoric times, Corporate took a cut of every item sold by each franchise, and they counted the sales by the number of wrappers and cups used. Thus each wrapper or cup was worth far more to the franchise than what they held.
[4] No Big Macs yet, remember? :D
Uncle Cosmo
@The Pale Scot: If all the economists in the world were laid end to end,
(a) it would probably be a good thing;
(b) they still wouldn’t reach a conclusion;
(c) all of the above.
Also: An economist is someone who likes to work with numbers but isn’t personable enough to be an accountant.
Barry
@The Moar You Know:
“ETA: should probably add in response to all the posts of “well place Y has had a sign up for $17/hr” is that work is neither full time nor has any benefits.”
And that’s assuming that the sign did not actually say ‘up to $17/hr’ which means that if you were working overtime on a holiday midnight shift you could earn that.
SargassoSink
@worn:this site needs like buttons, is all I’m saying
Niques
@Kay:Why are all these theories based on 13 people who claim to be ANYTHING on Twitter?
terry chay
@Geminid:
There have been a number of analysis, but the upshot is because of the pandemic, Uber and Lyft were able to spin the proposition as HELPING the drivers and nobody knew until too late.
Geminid
@terry chay: It was a very understandable result. My gripe is that so little of the hundreds of millions spent on the liberal side last year found it’s way to the gig workers who faced such deep-pocketed opponents.
I guess a larger complaint is that a lot of the middle, upper middle, and upper class people who vote Democratic do not really care about working class people. They may care in the abstract, and bemoan poverty, income inequality, etc., but they don’t care in practical ways.
And too many people still see the economy as a zero sum game. They do not understand that a thriving working class really would lead to a more prosperous middle class. And to a more prosperous upper class, for that matter.