exactly, so the notion that big businesses need to keep raising their costs to keep up with raising wages its untrue. there are some exceptions like food and beverage industry where margins are thin

I completely agree. Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Microsoft, etc are all guilty of exploiting tax loopholes. I hear right wingers always parroting that "they deserve it because they employ so many people"

I'll never understand why relatively poor right wing voters sympathize with the ultra rich hoarding their gold

Costco charges a fee to all members to shop there hence their ridiculous profit level. anyone can shop at Walmart

i agree about better pay, that’s a product of the wealth gap that got exacerbated starting with covid

A lefty is the one that’s bitching.

I know that they could and have been raising goods prices, but my contention is that they can choose not to. Why not just let the raise in employee wages eat into his profit. As long as his business can still continue operating. Pay one's employees a decent wage so maybe he can raise a family of his own, raising babies who will become future workers for the entire nation...I think that is a small price to pay.

Of course, employers don't care about that. So, I believe the government should step in. Employees (especially low-skilled, underpaid ones) should be given a living wage. And then order businesses owners to not pass it on to the consumers. If the business can't survive, then that simply means the business has survived thus far by relying on cheap labor. In this case, maybe they should go out of business and let other more honest and innovative businesses to come in and take over their customer base.

To the contrary, this is a complete vindication of the right-wing position. Market factors can clearly push wages higher.

Not something I've typically heard from right wingers tbh, most of the time I hear many of them criticizing big tech. Curios, why do you think big tech continues to favor one party over the other? Like why do they consistently give more to Democrats?

Several issues with this post, but I'd just like to point out the glaring lie: 40% of "the entire labor market" is NOT unionized. Only 6.6% of the private labor market is unionized. 34.8% of the PUBLIC labor market (aka government workers) are unionized. As for the overall labor market, a grand total of 12.1% is unionized.

Regarding the OP: This has been happening off and on for the past year and a half. When laborers are paid not to provide labor at rates higher than their actual labor provides, and given rent-free housing for that same time-frame, their savings grows, and their need for work shrinks. It was a blast back in July watching every single apartment complex in the Portland Metro lose half+ of their tenants due to the end of the Eviction Moratorium. The best part is that those landlords could not give a poor referral to their tenants, nor could the tenants credit ratings be impacted by their use of over a year's free housing, so the tenants that one apartment lost, the apartments right across the street gained. Meanwhile, thanks to the unemployment benefits reaching and even exceeding $15/hour based on a 40 hour work week, to do nothing at all, what's the incentive to get back to work? Anyone who took advantage of the free money and free housing could easily have bankrolled upwards of $30K over the last year and a half. That's more than enough to provide a year's rent, utilities, food, clothing, etc. And that's just for an individual. Couples, those with children, etc. received far more.

Labor shortages are a natural result of unlinking the value of the currency from the goods and services the currency is supposed to represent, while simultaneously flooding the low end labor pool with excess cash. Bernie talked for decades about forcing private industry to compete with the government for labor. Both Trump and Biden actively implemented it. Why is it a shock that it's led to labor shortages, exactly?



Which "right wingers" are freaking out? Is Thor a "right winger" suddenly? "Right wingers" predicted this would occur, have been pointing out the dropping labor market participation rates, have been pointing out growing inflation and increased lack of services and products over the last year and a half. They aren't freaked out or shocked in any way. They've been pointing it out nonstop. It's not a surprise. It was a predictable outcome.



Agreed. Buying pre-made food is pretty terrible anyhow. Make your own burgers. It'll be cheaper, healthier, and taste better, and you'll end up burning a ton of the calories you consume between the preparation and cleanup, plus get exercise as well. Not sad or sorry that obese landwhales are finding it more difficult to remain landwhales.

It's only cheaper if you consider your time to be worthless. Which kind of makes sense when you're poor since you don't make much at your job.

Also, who's burning a ton of calories preparing and cleaning up a meal? Like, what?

Right wingers only started going after big tech when big tech started censoring their obvious lies. Prior to that they were, and largely still remain, totally in favor of big tech's monopolistic behavior. I don't see anybody looking to break up Amazon or Google. Just ad-hoc regulations when the monopoly doesn't benefit them.