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NEVERENDING ♾️ The NEVERENDING Political Discussion Thread

michaelskis said:
It is bigger that that. Almost every restaurant, and most of the stores in our area have a staffing shortage because the Government is now subsidizing people to stay home.
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I get your frustration. Still, if you're outraged because "lazy" folks would rather sit at home for $15/hour instead of working at the first shitty job that comes along for $10/hour (and paying for daycare, if they have kids), some in states where vaccination rates are low and the Delta variant is spreading quickly, I hope you're equally outraged that the wealthiest 1% of American households controlled about $41.52 trillion of the nation's wealth, and the bottom 50% -- that's middle-middle class and below -- controlled only $2.62 trillion, or 1/16th of the amount of the top 1%. Or that billionaires have gotten $1.2 trillion richer during the pandemic. But, hey, let's point fingers at Jayden because she's making a rational decision to spend some meaningful time at home with her kid, rather than getting Karen's kids more fries at Red Robin.

If there's a labor shortage, employers have two choices; (1) raise wages, offer benefits, and/or improve working conditions to the point where working at a certain job becomes a rational economic decision, or (2) deal with a labor shortage, and complain about lazy, ungrateful workers. If you're the kind of employer who proclaims that anyone who doesn't want to wash dishes, stand up all day over a hot grill, or wipe shit off of patients in a memory care unit for minimum wage is "lazy" or "leeching off the system", why should anyone want to work for you to begin with?

From the Mercury-News "rational decision" link above: "As Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at the left leaning Economic Policy Institute, wrote, “I often suggest that whenever anyone says, ‘I can’t find the workers I need,’ she should really add, ‘at the wages I want to pay."

(And, IMHO, if you want to get more off the dole and into the workforce, the Feds and state governments need to address the benefits cliff, instead of just commissioning reports about it like they have for the past God-knows-how-many decades.)
 
michaelskis said:
So, there are more child care establishments with less employees? Is that because of less demand or less staff willing to work, which reduces possible capacity and still meet state child to employee ratios? Are they making more due to less staff or raised prices, or both?
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I haven't looked into the numbers deeply but I would imagine that the increase in establishments while there has been a decrease in workers is likely because many larger child care providers closed their doors early in the pandemic and then some child care workers who initially lost their jobs quickly opened up their own facilities. But if 1000 facilities that employ between 5 and 9 workers are replaced by 2000 facilities that employ fewer than 5 workers, we're still going to have a net decrease in capacity (unfortunately, recent establishment by size of employment figures aren't available yet).

I imagine demand for child care services absolutely plummeted in March - May of 2020, which according to the national monthly employment numbers in that industry, is when that industry really shed their jobs. Again, these are really low paid jobs so if those workers wanted another job, they probably haven't had much trouble finding a new one where they are likely making more than they were previously, especially starting around in the fall. Now that demand for child care services is likely returning, these small employers are struggling to re-hire because a) many of those they let go have moved on to other occupations, b) they still offer low wages making the industry not very attractive, and c) these are small employers without the time/capacity to dedicate to HR in order to staff up quickly.

I think the labor market is going to continue to be crazy in so many of these low paying hospitality, service, and retail jobs until the early fall when schools are hopefully back full time and parents, who would otherwise be working parents, have some semblance of normal life again and things should really improve once vaccines are available for the under-12 set and many parents are more comfortable putting their children back into child care.
 
Dan said:
I get your frustration. Still, if you're outraged because "lazy" folks would rather sit at home for $15/hour instead of working at the first shitty job that comes along for $10/hour (and paying for daycare, if they have kids), some in states where vaccination rates are low and the Delta variant is spreading quickly, I hope you're equally outraged that the wealthiest 1% of American households controlled about $41.52 trillion of the nation's wealth, and the bottom 50% -- that's middle-middle class and below -- controlled only $2.62 trillion, or 1/16th of the amount of the top 1%. Or that billionaires have gotten $1.2 trillion richer during the pandemic? But, hey, let's point fingers at Jayden because she's making a rational decision to spend some meaningful time at home with her kid, rather than getting Karen's kids more fries at Red Robin.

If there's a labor shortage, employers have two choices -- raise wages, offer benefits, and/or improve working conditions to the point where working at a certain job becomes a rational economic choice, or deal with a labor shortage, and complain about lazy, ungrateful workers. And, if you're the kind of employer who proclaims that anyone who desn't want to get paid minimum wage (with no benefits) to wash dishes, stand up all day over a hot grill, or wipe shit off of patients in a memory care unit, is "lazy" or "leeching off the system", why should anyone want to work for you to begin with?

From the Mercury-News "rational decision" link: "As Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at the left leaning Economic Policy Institute, wrote, “I often suggest that whenever anyone says, ‘I can’t find the workers I need,’ she should really add, ‘at the wages I want to pay."

(And, IMHO, if you want to get more off the dole and into the workforce, the Feds and state governments need to address the benefits cliff, instead of just commissioning reports about it like they have for the past God-knows-how-many decades.)
Click to expand...
I am not sure I would say that these folks are lazy because in most cases I don't think they are. They are just capitalizing on the system that the government provided. I was talking to a coworker about this and he said that the neighbor kid who was laid off of a starter job makes quite a bit more now from the unemployment and odd jobs such as yard work and such than he would have if he went back when they called him. I would not be surprised if there are some people living in their parents basement playing video games, but I think that most of those who are using it see an opportunity available to them and they are capitalizing on it.

As for the wealthy and this big corporations, hey, it pisses me off too. That is why whenever possible I try to keep my money local. But it is also the local people that are the most effected by all of this. They run super tight margins as it is and now the labor shortage is also progressing into a supply shortage. This morning a restaurant owner indicated that his price of beef and chicken is almost double what it was pre-pandemic. At the moment he is running even in hopes that the price

WSU MUP Student said:
I haven't looked into the numbers deeply but I would imagine that the increase in establishments while there has been a decrease in workers is likely because many larger child care providers closed their doors early in the pandemic and then some child care workers who initially lost their jobs quickly opened up their own facilities. But if 1000 facilities that employ between 5 and 9 workers are replaced by 2000 facilities that employ fewer than 5 workers, we're still going to have a net decrease in capacity (unfortunately, recent establishment by size of employment figures aren't available yet).

I imagine demand for child care services absolutely plummeted in March - May of 2020, which according to the national monthly employment numbers in that industry, is when that industry really shed their jobs. Again, these are really low paid jobs so if those workers wanted another job, they probably haven't had much trouble finding a new one where they are likely making more than they were previously, especially starting around in the fall. Now that demand for child care services is likely returning, these small employers are struggling to re-hire because a) many of those they let go have moved on to other occupations, b) they still offer low wages making the industry not very attractive, and c) these are small employers without the time/capacity to dedicate to HR in order to staff up quickly.

I think the labor market is going to continue to be crazy in so many of these low paying hospitality, service, and retail jobs until the early fall when schools are hopefully back full time and parents, who would otherwise be working parents, have some semblance of normal life again and things should really improve once vaccines are available for the under-12 set and many parents are more comfortable putting their children back into child care.
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I would think that the net decrease would need to be offset with higher costs to accommodate the amount of non-staff related overhead.

Someone must be reading our posts...
www.cnn.com

$30,000 signing bonuses, childcare help: What companies are doing to attract workers

Workers are in high demand. And companies are having a hard time finding people to fill the positions.
www.cnn.com www.cnn.com
 
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dw914er said:
A lot of these customer service jobs suck; I wouldn't want to go back myself.
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And that's why, when we go out, we try to be patient -- not the easiest thing to do with my ADHD -- and we tip big.

I get why @michaelskis is frustrated. Thing is, there's no constitutional right to speedy service at a restaurant. I'm going to get all crotchety old man here; when I was a kid, parents seldom took their younger children out to table service restaurants. It was the occasional stop at McDonald's, Burger King, or a hot dog stand (or Henry's Hamburgers, Red Barn, or Carroll's, with my being at the older side of Generation X), maybe a "special dinner" out at a local diner chain like Your Host, and that was it.

During peak COVID-19, we ordered a lot of takeout from local restaurants. Now that restaurants around here are seating at full capacity, most of them are busy as hell; especially now that tourists are back, along with parents and kids visiting colleges and universities. If a place is crowded, or it seems like there will be a long wait, we go somewhere else. If we want to guarantee a table and decent service (by pre-COVID-19 standards), we go out early; like 4:30 PM, or even earlier for "linner" on weekends.
 
Dan said:
And that's why, when we go out, we try to be patient -- not the easiest thing to do with my ADHD -- and we tip big.

I get why @michaelskis is frustrated. Thing is, there's no constitutional right to speedy service at a restaurant. I'm going to get all crotchety old man here; when I was a kid, parents seldom took their younger children out to table service restaurants. It was the occasional stop at McDonald's, Burger King, or a hot dog stand (or Henry's Hamburgers, Red Barn, or Carroll's, with my being at the older side of Generation X), maybe a "special dinner" out at a local diner chain like Your Host, and that was it.

During peak COVID-19, we ordered a lot of takeout from local restaurants. Now that restaurants around here are seating at full capacity, most of them are busy as hell; especially now that tourists are back, along with parents and kids visiting colleges and universities. If a place is crowded, or it seems like there will be a long wait, we go somewhere else. If we want to guarantee a table and decent service (by pre-COVID-19 standards), we go out early; like 4:30 PM, or even earlier for "linner" on weekends.
Click to expand...

We typically do takeout vs. eating in a restaurant, but try and be patient when we do. We will also take our toddler, but will typically ask for something easy and fast to come out earlier to help get her occupied - but that would be the case regardless.
 
Dan said:
And that's why, when we go out, we try to be patient -- not the easiest thing to do with my ADHD -- and we tip big.

I get why @michaelskis is frustrated. Thing is, there's no constitutional right to speedy service at a restaurant. I'm going to get all crotchety old man here; when I was a kid, parents seldom took their younger children out to table service restaurants. It was the occasional stop at McDonald's, Burger King, or a hot dog stand (or Henry's Hamburgers, Red Barn, or Carroll's, with my being at the older side of Generation X), maybe a "special dinner" out at a local diner chain like Your Host, and that was it.

During peak COVID-19, we ordered a lot of takeout from local restaurants. Now that restaurants around here are seating at full capacity, most of them are busy as hell; especially now that tourists are back, along with parents and kids visiting colleges and universities. If a place is crowded, or it seems like there will be a long wait, we go somewhere else. If we want to guarantee a table and decent service (by pre-COVID-19 standards), we go out early; like 4:30 PM, or even earlier for "linner" on weekends.
Click to expand...
I think the speedy service was just the straw that broke the camels back for me. Yes, I was furious because we were only going out once a week and we lasted 5 minutes at the table and the wife decided to take our middle son out to the truck and wait there. It was a 25 minute drive from home, so she told the rest of us to take our time and eat. (We ate as fast as we could and as soon as the food arrived, my oldest ran her food out to the truck. As we were there we also realized that I feel bad for the wait staff that was there because I realized that under normal conditions, the tables would have turned over 2, maybe 3 times, so that is lost tips for them and lost sales for the businesses.

The other side of the coin that is deeper for us is we are working hard to revitalize our downtown and to lose two businesses because of the staffing shortages just hit really hard, especially given that both of them were retail.
 
Officials in Michigan county used COVID-19 funds for $65K in bonuses
www.freep.com

Officials in Michigan county used COVID-19 funds for $65K in bonuses

Commissioners — all Republicans — last week voted to award money to county employees. It ranged from $25,000 to $2,000. All workers got at least $1,000.
www.freep.com

The money, described as "hazard pay," included $25,000 for Jeremy Root, chairman of the Shiawassee County Board of Commissioners.

Commissioner Marlene Webster said she was "mortified" when money appeared in her bank account. She said she didn't know she voted to reward herself.
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JNA said:
Officials in Michigan county used COVID-19 funds for $65K in bonuses
www.freep.com

Officials in Michigan county used COVID-19 funds for $65K in bonuses

Commissioners — all Republicans — last week voted to award money to county employees. It ranged from $25,000 to $2,000. All workers got at least $1,000.
www.freep.com
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I was floored by this one.

I can agree with a bit of a bonus for employees, even electeds, during this time since so many were likely doing things way out of the norm for their job description or typical duties but an extra $25k for the head of the BOC and $5k to $10k for some of the others, while the cleaning crew got a grand. :r:

We authorized hazard pay for folks who had to work during the initial few months of the lockdown here, but it was only for folks who were physically in an office where social distancing was not possible or were working with the public and HR/Payroll was very strict about verifying that people were actually in those roles. Elected officials were not eligible and I don't think appointees were either.

Among those in the county that received the bonus, the average total payout was about $3,500. There were 25 people in our department that were eligible and $33,723 was paid in total. So, on average, those employees received about $1,348 (I imagine a huge chunk of that went to two particular guys: one who is responsible for our IT and was here most days making sure things were running smoothly and one who is an audio/visual guy and had to be here for daily press conferences and other events that needed documenting).

Even the eligible folks in Public Health and the Sheriff's Department who were likely working long hours only received about $3,200 on average.
 
Multiple thoughts:

I am appalled with some of the GOP reaction to the hearing pertaining to the riots at the capitol. A buddy of mine who is a bit of an extremists indicated that it was no different than the start of the American Revolution... I was quick to point out that it was NOTHING like the start of the American Revolution and that he needs to read up on his history. It also makes me appreciate folks like Liz Cheney and 9 others including Fred Upton and Peter Meijer, both from Michigan, who voted for Trump's impeachment earlier this year.


I still have mixed feelings on mandating the vaccine if it hasn't received full FDA Approvals yet. I am all for it once the FDA issues full approval, but until then I would rather see us go back to a full mask mandate for all public places. More so, I fully support and encourage people to get the vaccine. However despite what some say, it is not without risk. My wife is still not back to 100%. She came with me to a work function and one of my coworkers who knows the struggles commented that if she didn't know that she had Bells Palsy, she would have thought my wife had a stroke at some point. It's not all that noticeable until she goes to talk, smiles, or laughs. The neurologist told her two weeks ago that this might be as good as it gets towards her recovery. We have spent over $3,000 so far in copays, specialists, and attempted treatments on this since she got her first shot. There are protections for situations like this when it receives full FDA approval, but under emergency authorization, it is use at your own risk.
 
I agree, some of the reaction from the GOP about January 6th is stunning. If you're going to claim you're the pro-law and order party (frankly I'd like to think any party is pro-law and order but whatever) how can you see the video and listen to testimony from people who have sworn to protect YOU and still downplay what happened?

I do hope your wife continues to improve.
 
This is hilarious:

a Republican strategist ... called the continued efforts to recall Whitmer “madness.”​
“All of these grassroots conservatives who want to get rid of Whitmer need to get with the program that they're currently making it harder, not easier,”
None of the dozens of recall attempts against Whitmer have been approved, however. On Monday alone, the Michigan Board of Canvassers discussed 10 petitions to recall Whitmer, but none have made it far because of factual errors in petitions, unclear language or lack of signatures.​


www.bridgemi.com

GOP strategists: Efforts to recall Michigan Gov. Whitmer have backfired | Bridge Michigan

Republicans plea to stop efforts after the Democrat uses a campaign finance loophole for recall defenses to set a fundraising record.
www.bridgemi.com www.bridgemi.com
 
Follow up on
Officials in Michigan county used COVID-19 funds for $65K in bonuses

Shiawassee County commissioner resigns as chair after COVID-19 payouts to top officials
www.mlive.com

Shiawassee County commissioner resigns as chair after COVID-19 payouts to top officials

The Shiawassee County Board of Commissioners never got a chance to remove Jeremy Root from his position as chairman of the board during their special meeting Sunday, Aug. 1. Root did it himself, resigning his chairmanship but not his position as a commissioner, after a failed attempt to give...
www.mlive.com www.mlive.com
 
Why is it that one party only believes things if they experience it directly? This is like gay rights. If you aren't gay, why would you support it? If you didn't get COVID and almost die, why would you believe in it?

www.yahoo.com

Tennessee GOP rep who rejected masks now says COVID-19 is real and dangerous after his 8-month battle with the virus

David Byrd once shunned masks but is now urging people to take COVID-19 seriously after his eight-month battle with the virus.
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com

GOP governors are banning communities from doing the right thing as we speak. We are about to have to go back into hiding and it still takes someone actually getting it and almost dying or actually dying for them to come out and say we HAVE to do these things to protect our society.

How weak is a leader when doing the right thing is very easy and achievable by the stroke of a pen, but their unwillingness is based on Don Quixote ideas of grandeur that don't exist? Winning an election is not worth the death that will come because people didn't get vaccinated. DeSantis (and others like him) is going to pay a steep political price as Florida continue to spiral downward and he refuses to close things or require masking or vaccination.
 
I thought to myself this weekend - "the last thing I want to do is start wearing a mask again" and quickly amended it to "the last thing I want to do is get COVID-19, I'll wear the damned mask again".

There's no mask mandate locally, so I was a little surprised at how many folks were indeed wearing masks.

I'm tired of living in a northern state that wishes it was a southern state.
 
Went to a play ("Cabaret") on Saturday; it's long been my practice to pedal there. My bike bag has a comfy contoured mask in it. I wore it.
Inside, all the staff were masked. Maybe 10% of attendees. The seating wasn't quite SD but there were open spaces in the not-great area.
Yesterday I hit three stores, seeing again maybe 10% of folks masked.
 
michaelskis said:
When is enough going to be enough to impeach this SOB.

www.cnn.com

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women, state attorney general report says

The New York attorney general's investigation into sexual harassment allegations against Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo found that Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women, Attorney General Letitia James announced Tuesday.
www.cnn.com www.cnn.com
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Agreed. This is not looking good for Cuomo. I'm curious to hear what evidence James has at her disposal (and you know she does) supporting these allegations. No one is above the law. Even the Governor of New York.
 
Maister said:
Agreed. This is not looking good for Cuomo. I'm curious to hear what evidence James has at her disposal (and you know she does) supporting these allegations. No one is above the law. Even the Governor of New York.
Click to expand...
Unless you are someone with money in NYC. Look at Trump and everything he got away with.
 
Politicians can't step down because it would mean they lose power. This isn't about serving communities, it is about power.

We need more civil servants and less power hungry asshats.
 
Some of the COVID restrictions showed that the Michigan Governor was more than just a little bit on the crazy side. (ie, no power boats on lakes....) but now she is trying to raise money to thwart off challenges by DeVoss, who it appears is not running for Governor? Not a new tactic to build fear in people, but still.

www.freep.com

Whitmer campaign wants money to defend against Betsy DeVos — but she hasn't announced run

A recent Whitmer fund-raising letter cites "news of Betsy DeVos's run" for governor in its appeal for campaign cash. But there has been no such news.
www.freep.com
 
He’s not a republican so he’ll be crucified. If he was a Republican, he’d be on the Supreme Court bench right now - right Kavanaugh?
 
What are your thoughts on the eviction prohibition? I don't know much about it, but I was wondering if there was anything that protected landlords from having the banks take the properties if they can't make the payments because their renters are not paying rents?
 
michaelskis said:
What are your thoughts on the eviction prohibition? I don't know much about it, but I was wondering if there was anything that protected landlords from having the banks take the properties if they can't make the payments because their renters are not paying rents?
Click to expand...

When the federal government mandated banks begin offering forbearance for mortgage holders at the start of the pandemic, that also included forbearance for eligible landlords. The forbearance program has since been continued through September of this year.

That said, I recall last summer there were horror stories among mortgage holders trying to navigate the forbearance process and get their payments stopped. I'm not sure if that's been improved or streamlined since then but I imagine a lot of it comes down to how cooperative and responsive the lenders are.

Eligibility included anybody with a federally backed mortgage so that probably covers a good share of the smaller landlords out there. I'm not sure how that would affect the larger multi-family complexes though or if there was some other program set up for them.



IIRC, when the eviction ban went into effect (which came about after the forbearance program) there were CARES act funds set aside to go towards the landlords but it sounded like it had to flow through state and local hands first. Some states and localities decided not to participate and allowed the landlords to fight the bans and there were courts that allowed tenants to be evicted regardless of the ban. In Michigan, renters and/or landlords can request COVID Emergency Rental Assistance (CERA) through MSHDA and I've heard that the process works, but is slow and arduous.
 
In today's news, our local university requires proof of vaccination this fall. Commenters on the FOX affiliate are going wild. "jUsT tRaNsFeR t0 a dIfFeReNt c0lLeGe"

Current list of universities in the group:

U-M
MSU
Wayne State
Oakland U
GVSU
GRCC medical programs (the rest is coming soon)

A MSU student has organized a petition to protest, because she needs something like 7 credits to graduate and "doesn't want" the vaccine
 
Veloise said:
In today's news, our local university requires proof of vaccination this fall. Commenters on the FOX affiliate are going wild. "jUsT tRaNsFeR t0 a dIfFeReNt c0lLeGe"

Current list of universities in the group:

U-M
MSU
Wayne State
Oakland U
GVSU
GRCC medical programs (the rest is coming soon)

A MSU student has organized a petition to protest, because she needs something like 7 credits to graduate and "doesn't want" the vaccine
Click to expand...
The legal challenges are going to be fascinating. There is tons of case history of mandatory vaccines, but this is the first time that it was still under emergency authorization instead of full FDA approval when the mandates were announced. Especially when legal protections for the end user are not in place yet.
 
Tired of Arizona being a damn embarrassment. I mean are we trying to keep up with Georgia :p First we have this whole audit crap with the senate saying none of the records are public because it's a private contractor after a judge ruled the records are public because it's a legislative function. Now we get Phoenix under investigation for police abuses. Next thing you know they'll figure out the local planners are all socialists.
 
210807_c-800x537.jpg
 
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