Yuck. Profiteering off of hedonism isn't virtuous.

And then people that participate in such commercial activities and wonder why they live a degenerate dumpsterfire society.

Attached File


Very chamber of commerce.

Why can't it actually be worse?

"In the Baltimore - Washington area $550,000 gets you a 2000 sqft townhome maybe with a one car garage.  Houses in the $600,000 to $700,000 range are still selling."

Attached File


Attached File

No sure, my industry has been slowly decreasing since the 90s. We are just now at a point it’s become a crisis, as in 200+ wait lists. However it makes sense, 10 plus years of higher education with many around 14 is a tall bill. If that’s not enough of an issue state school interns typically have 150k min of debt. So 10 plus years of your life and 150k, it makes sense, even though it’s good money, that is a lot ask. Especially when many do not make it to the end.

Your average LE agency in the USA still has fewer than 25 officers
It doesn't take many Dem-leaning big city agencies to numerically counterbalance the majority of smaller and more conservative agencies from around the rest of the country.
There's also been a concerted effort by liberals to subvert those smaller agencies and shrink the conservative officer numbers by demanding that new hires more closely fit the demographics of the community.....

I was in a McDonald's last week in MT that appeared to be staffed only by teenagers. I didn't even see an adult manager in the place.


It depends on the area and the PD. A former co-worker of mine who left our PD for one of the well paid county PDs on Long Island makes over $250k every year with OT as a patrol cop. Cops who worked for another PD in the same city as us used to make the news every year for how much they made with OT. They had regular cops making more than our Commissioner.

I just retired from LE.  Sick of the bullshit.  Many many departments are the same way.

I worked with a guy that made $14/hr as a forklift driver/sales in 1982 and he told me the same job today in OKC pays $9/hr.

So there.

There's your fucking problem.

Yep.

The "labor shortage" has been created by the government.

I took an upper management retail job just to get out of Mass and I'm already in the process of ejecting. Retail is modern slave labor. I would have no problem sacrificing my paycheck just to get back a mon to fri 8 to 4 schedule in the field I have over 20 years of experience in to leave retail.

Been to a McDonald's, Taco Bell, or Walmart recently? That is 100% what is happening with those self order/checkout kiosk. Rightly so if there is no labor force.

Attached File

but but but they were overpaid! They shoukdz get minimum wage! NO LIVING WAGE! Market correction! Muh capitalismz! Unions caused this! Heeeerrrrrp a deeeerpppp brrrrrrrrt.....

@11boomboom Are you in the DFW area? If you are interested in mechanical type work (gas turbine engine testing) my employer is hiring and starts out around $20/hour with decent benefits and 6% matching 401k. Fortune 100 employer.
I really think they should up that about $5-7/hour. We have constant openings these days, but it's due to guys going to field service which pays much higher.

The key phrases are in red.  It shouldn't be a surprise.

If you’re a woman you can make a living marketing yourself on social media. You don’t need a 9-5 job.

The real money is in dog sitting on Rover.

Sugar baby

Scrapper

Pool / Lawn care

WOW! It's going to be fun when this party comes to an end and the free money runs out.

Have you ever worked at Starbucks? It’s actually a great part time job. $15 an hour plus tips. 1# of free coffee a week. Health insurance if you average 20-hours a week. Free tuition.

The FPNI thing is true.  Second post too.

It's simply a reflection of our society as a whole.  The economy is fake enough a lot of people don't want to participate in it anymore.  On top of that public sector jobs (police, FF, medic, etc.) are so politically driven and controlled that anyone who worked in them even 10 years ago might not recognize the job, how to do it, etc.

Teenagers work here but also think about mom and dad getting a teenager to work in the burbs.  It costs money to take little Timmy to his McDonald's job that is 6 miles away.  In 1990 Timmy could buy a used Chevy Nova with factory fender rust in full bloom mode and pay car insurance on McDonald's wages.  Timmy's car insurance is barely affordable by his working class parents and buying a used shit box isn't $500.00 anymore...it's more like $5,000.00 or more for something semi reliable unless you're handy with cars.

That mom who could work Starbucks part-time while the kids were at school doesn't want to pay to drive across town to put up with angry addicted customers.  

There's also the gig economy, online services, Uber, etc.  There's more options for work that don't require a serious commitment.

If you're a kid from the elite class most of these jobs don't even register on your radar.  That's the other issue in that the elite economy is completely separate from most of the rest of the world's job and business options and the smart/wealthy/etc. aren't going to participate in low-end jobs.

This trend has been ongoing since the 1980s and with each financial crisis has gotten worse.  2008-2009 was bad but COVID and the available government money enticed a lot of people to quit playing the participation game.  Hence the importing of millions from the south.

Friend is a game warden in TX and he got in under the 20 year to be fully vested rule. It's almost up. I'm guessing once that rule gets near 20 years lots of others will as well. Said he is just tired of the attitude. That and he rotates around to the border now.

Absolutely this. One of my ex co-workers told me that he was making exactly what he was in 1992.

17 bucks an hour isn't enough to live on even in lower cost of living areas now. I did some math and even with the quarter of my salary increasing in the 2.7 years I have been at my current job, its become irrelevant because the amount of taxes I pay is that same quarter right back.

So I make 20hr, 30 on OT. If you break down what my hourly rate is after taxes I make like 15.21 or something. My OT rate is 22ish if I recall correctly.  By the time I PAY whats owed at tax time I am basically making 33k a year after taxes maybe slightly more with all the mandatory OT.

Now you tell me what house you can realistically afford on that income? So then you factor in my wife's income and we do OK, but still not enough to afford a shitty 920sq foot Jim Walter built in the 50's on a half an acre.

My and most other employers pay scales are stuck in the early 2000's while housing, rent, gas, electric, insurance and medical has doubled or tippled in that same time. Then you have management talking about everyone leaving for "pennies" when in reality they are getting a 4-5 buck raise for walking out the door.

So you look at what the guy being hired at 15 an hour is making after taxes, and he's basically making the minimum wage from a few years ago. Whats his incentive to work harder when he can coast and remain employed because the company is desperate for warm bodies.

Cop's are making the same bullshit wages I am, EMS is making basically minimum wage now, and then you realize that fucking loser who smokes weed all day is making the same amount of money driving for Uber or Instacart with none of the bullshit mandatory OT. And don't forget about the number of illegals that are driving wages down and employers happy to hire them because they can work them like dogs and pay them peanuts.

The 08 crisis and 1000 people applying for a job at McDonalds spoiled employers and allowed them to raise profits while suppressing wages for decades. They got used to the gravy train and now are beholden to the board and shareholders who demand strong 15% growth every quarter without fail. All while raising prices and lowering benefits and wages.

Laziness.

I thought this too.  But then real estate. Where are all those people coming from?

I can give you a valid answer, for a good portion of those workers, from personal experience:

My wife is a teacher.   Taught public schools in a few different states, but it got so difficult that she started teaching private schools.  That was OK for years, until that also got so unpleasant, that she finally took my advice and just quit.  

First, you have to understand that my wife is the Ideal teacher.  She really cares about teaching, and she believes in standards.  It’s impossible for her to just adopt the “union teacher mindset” of “go along and get along” no matter how many times I told her.  

She was getting paid only $1200 take home every 2 weeks.   Basically, $100 per day.      Now, $100 per day, is what illegal immigrant laborers got paid, back in the mid ‘80’s.        It’s not even close to a reasonable salary for a degreed professional that has to deal with children.
This is in an area, where the cheapest small 3/2 fixer upper house costs $600,000 to start.    BTW- there’s no pension.  Even in public schools.  

So, all you can do, is vote with your feet.      The money she was getting paid was nominal.  It wasn’t an incentive of any kind.    We are fortunate that I can make up her salary by picking up a couple extra days.  But even if I couldn’t, she’d be better off on Welfare, than working that job.
Things that made the job miserable:   Kids with serious behavioral problems who shouldn’t be mainstreamed.   Autistic kids/violent kids/kids with no self control or even bodily control.
Kids that are undisciplined and have never been told “no”.  
Parents that refuse to hold their children accountable for anything.
Terrible boss/management.  
Parents that take no responsibility.  
Political correctness/wokeness.

The same problems would be facing Anyone dealing with the public.
Cops, etc, even Retail sales.      For very little pay.      Being on Welfare, is literally the smartest, most practical choice.

Attached File

LoL yeah, damn kids today don't want to live 8 to a 2 bedroom apartment and work 90 hours and be happy to do so! Even China is starting to feel the crunch from the bottom as more of their labor class starts demanding better treatment/wages for the hours they work.

Birth rates among competent Americans 30years ago weren't high enough. The production of new people is a very long process and failures in this process take time to show up. Bringing in tens of millions of incompetents has only made the problem worse.

I don’t know if anyone remembers, but I called it years ago, and I’ve mentioned it many times since.  Started seeing it just a couple months into the Covid era.    It’s the strangest phenomenon I’ve ever seen.

Pretty much this. There's become a massive disconnect between our managerial class (who generally have moderate to higher end degrees) and the actual reality on the ground. A COMPETENT AND SMART MANAGER would look at the living conditions of his area within a 30 minute drive of the "office", and calibrate things so that even on the lowest end of the hiring scale, an employee working full time would be able to afford on their own a small basic apartment, car insurance, gas, etc etc and still have a bit left over in spending money each month.

But no, that would be TOO MUCH WORK. So now we have this absurd situation where wages remain stagnant, while costs explode; and the managerial class wonders where all the workers have gone -- and then after a year of failing at their job, the managers are head hunted away by another company which pays for their relocation costs half-way across the country.

I work at a smaller contract manufacturing company. We have about 160 employees.
We do quite a bit of outreach programs for local youth. Regularly bringing in local high-school kids for tours and internships.

The teacher for the local high-school shop department just quit his job to come be an entry level welder, just to get away from the public school system.

For what cops earn and what they have to deal with? No, thanks. It's no wonder they are short staffed.

This too. Without full accounting a huge portion of the economy is profiting from destroying human capital. We operate only considering the income statement while the balance sheet burns.

Did that for many years. I do NOT recommend it.

I own a retail biz. Dealing with the public and the staff makes me want to shut down.

I cant fucking imagine being a cop.

No, I'm not in the DFW area, but thanks for the offer.

We have an unsupervised little food pantry in my community. Think really big mailbox in front of a community building, but out In the sticks. The guy in charge of it has been sick and couldn't refill it so he asked me to stop by and fill it. I was able to put 3 big cardboard boxes of canned and boxed food in it. I had time so I decided to hangout inside for a bit. Three people in decent to nice cars basically cleaned it out in less than an hour.
One of the ladies i know. She lives with her husband adult daughter and grandchildren. All the adults draw a fat check and daughter has no husband. Someone else that knows the family said they make a loop hitting all the food banks regularly. I assume they sell it because they run a perpetual yard sale at their house

If you go by your local flea market you'll see where lots of the shoplifted, donated, and ebt purchased items go.

My first job as a (legally employable) kid was at a grocery store. The amount remaining on EBT cards would show after a transaction. The amount of people with $500-1000 monthly free food was mind boggling, especially back in the 2000s before cost of living went insane. As a kid working a register for around $6 an hour, the idea that many of those people got essentially 100 hours of labor for free every month blew my mind, and even then I knew that their "benefits" didn't stop there.

After you go by the flea market, take a few hours off during the week to go sit in small claims court. Listen to the reasons why they didn't pay the $40-80 they owe monthly on their section 8 apartments. Times wuz tough, they'll say. More than once I've heard a judge ask about when they last had their hair done or nails, as those are things that will DEFINITELY be a priority! Those same people will never realize the purpose of that question and will gladly answer that they just had them done the other day, normally thinking they were being complimented!

While the average person can't just suck down 80k of bennies as asserted, some people make it a lifestyle and will very much live cradle to grave off of it. They know what doctors to go to to maintain their "disability" claims, how to have their children decreed as disabled, how to work every angle to extract every penny from the taxpayer. It is fraud from top to bottom and every service provider and big business is profiting from it.

I have always found it strange that jobs that provide a necessary and high value to society are paid like shit.  LEOs, firemen, paramedics, nurses, on and on.  NONE of those are paid anywhere close to where they should be.  Society would basically fail if they all just quit right now.  Not surprising that people are finally figuring it out.

The ones I know that hit up multiple food banks with others split the food collected between them because a lot of it is spoiled or not very good or that way they get a better split when certain foods like perishables are less available.

That problem has been solved. We just need to import more Filipinos to hire as teachers and police officers.

Garbage collectors get paid less than doctors. If they stopped working, disease would start running rampant and you're going to need a lot of doctors.

But then again... it's cheaper to train and replace a garbage collector than a doctor. So, this is how we pay people.

Imagine being a retail pharmacist, dealing with druggies hustling and lying to get meds early out of an unsympathetic pharmacist, senile old people who insist that their meds should be ready for pickup (despite them being in the WRONG company's store), people who leave the Dr's office 10 minutes ago and insist their meds be ready when the pharmacy hasn't even received the script yet, fucktards with 6 GoodRx coupons who want you to run them all to see which saves them the most (time consuming and rarely yields much savings), the welfare assholes who are on 6 different lifestyle meds and bitch about payiing $1 for a co-pay, morons who forgot to pay for their insurance yet are pissed when the ins co drops their coverage and they don't want to pay $347 for their insulin, the entitled ones who are incredibly impatient, etc.

No lunch break, bathroom breaks are scarce.

Garbage collectors require ZERO education, require zero interpersonal skills, and basically have zero accountability.  To compare them like that is folly.  All the ones I listed do and they are paid a pittance in compensation.

Yeah, but some of those jobs attract people for reasons other than pay (good or bad). People will firefight and do reserve police work for free. Most reserves i know do it because they want to help their community. Many people teach because they love kids (the summer break doesn't hurt either) EMTs get paid a fucking pittance and I can only assume it's because the job itself is really interesting and intense at times. That's the one that really leaves me scratching my head more than any.

Obviously that's a massive oversimplification, but my point is people want to do those jobs and they have benefits beyond the salary and compensation package. Not that doctors don't also love their jobs, but that's an entirely higher level of stress and liability in addition to the extreme barrier to entry both in cost and time. Look at a job with shit pay, low to zero job satisfaction, and which gets held in low regard by society- like say, a prison guard- and you'll see staffing rates around 25-33% and the only people sticking around are able to massively game OT or are so far in it doesn't make sense to leave.

Garbage collectors earn their money and many get paid decently because no one actually wants the job or to tell others what they do because it's looked down on. It's also a hot/cold/wet/stinky/dangerous miserable job that can't just be blown off until a ''nice'' day.

Try to pick up a gal after telling them you are a garbage collector. Won't happen even if you made $50 an hour.