Your opinion can be discarded and thrown into the trash can.

But states that curtailed the extra benefits are still experiencing labor shortages. Like I said, I live in a state that cut the unemployment benefits months ago.

There are two big factors that I think aren't being considered, one being that the elderly are still driving up demand but aren't working as much, thus lowering the labor force participation rate, and the gig economy is taking workers from low level positions. When I get bored I drive uber eats and I make easily $30 an hour. Why would I work at a store for $12 an hour when I can work uber eats for $30, and that extra $18 EASILY covers the discounted gas I get, discounted car maintenence I get from them, and uber eats has better discounts on health insurance than the shit options at a convenience store that doesn't give a retirement benfit anyway.



I've never bought an anime figurine and I still feel personally attacked.

This post was edited by NetflixAdaptationWidow on Sep 12 2021 11:31am

Cooking a meal and cleaning up afterwards burns, on average, between 150-500 calories, based on 30 minutes to an hour's worth of total work. Assuming 3 meals a day, that translates to 450-1500 daily calories burned.

Also, the "time=money" argument is stupid on it's face. If you are being forced to take an unpaid hour for lunch, that time is worth 0. Likewise, if you're off work and not being paid, the time needed to prepare dinner is worth 0. Likewise, the time to prepare breakfast, if you're not otherwise being paid, is worth 0. This is part of why it's considered "free time".

I always find it hilarious when people who spend their free time playing games, surfing the internet, and watching TV claim their time is "too valuable" to cook, do chores, and get exercise. It's amusing. And we wonder why there's an obesity epidemic?



Again, when people had free housing and were gaining in excess of $30K/year for over a year for sitting around doing nothing, and far more if they had children or were dual income, there's no immediate cause to get back to work for anyone who dropped any real amount into savings. Add in programs that paid landlords for rent April 2020 through February 2021, and tenants' ability to skip out on rent from March-July... Why do people who may very well have tens of thousands in free cash banked have any immediate need to hop right back into the labor pool?

Truthfully, trying to claim that anyone who spent years barely able to pay the bills, living paycheck to paycheck has any incentive to go back to work when they now have enough in the bank to not work for the next year is somewhat silly.



Another silly post. "Right Wingers" have had a big hate on for big tech for decades. Between all the tax breaks and even tax credits they receive to the outsourcing of labor and production, to the monopolistic anti-competition practices, to the "non-scalping" agreements between the companies to prevent higher labor costs, the right's been riding big tech's ass for ages. Censorship issues are a separate issue, and the majority of "right wingers" haven't been advocating for taxing them out of existence or breaking them up over censorship, merely removing some of their lawsuit protections.

Market factors. Aka UBI.

It was a hypothetical example of a situation where rising wages would indeed lead to economy-wide inflation....

I am interested in hearing what you might propose as a solution to these monopolistic, anti-competition practices. No I am not disagreeing with. I am 100 % behind you, I believe companies like Walmart, starbucks, Lockheed Martin, facebook...etc all need to be broken up so that smaller businesses can have a chance to compete against them and thrive. However, would not this mean the government has to step in? And my impression is that you detest any form of government intervention in a free, capitalist country. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Why would you break up facebook? And break it up into what? What services do they provide outside a social media platform? There are competitors, such as twitter, minds, etc. that operate just fine. It's not a monopoly.

No, monopolistic and anti-competition examples might be Amazon with AWS, and how they booted Parlor after writing a mutually beneficial contract with twitter that would have made parlor's taking of users from twitter a problem. Or perhaps how amazon will make knockoff amazon brands of products that other people are selling using the amazon marketplace, then derank everything but the highly profitable cheap to make amazon brands so that sales for amazon partners tank, while Amazon's direct sales go through the roof.

Imagine if windows was so specific that you could not run any browser but Edge, and it would not allow you to install chrome at all, for instance. Now branch that out, say they did it for spreadsheet software, document software, money management software. Now, they don't and never have, but what if they did? Well, what exactly do you think Google does with it's android services which actively pick and choose what to allow into their store, then require many steps to enable installing things not from their store onto their products?

Ok, let me put it this way, IF you are indeed wanting to break up monopolies, will this or will it not involve the government stepping in?

Yes, it always has. I'm not sure what company you want to break up though, or why. I think legal liability protections being reduced and/or stripped on a case by case basis, tax breaks and credits being revoked, etc. are a good start though. These are incentives for companies to continue doing precisely what they're doing. Removing the incentive, and instead incentivizing competitors, or simply allowing the market to function normally is a good start.

Hell, between OSHA and EPA regulations alone, smaller competitors often end up finding themselves fined out of business, simply because they can't afford to pay the staff to keep up with regulation requirements to know what they are or aren't supposed to do. As a whole, we're far too regulated now, and this provides a competitive advantage to the larger companies that smaller businesses often trip over. I doubt breaking up Amazon, for instance, would help breed competition at all, but would rather harm consumers, as well as smaller businesses that primarily sell their products via the Amazon Marketplace. In general, fewer regulations and restrictions, permits and requirements that act as bars of entry and cost floors would accomplish far more in the competitive arena.

My point is that, if you are saying the government should step in, then I see that this contradicts your usual stance that the government should get itself out of most economic transactions and indeed most peaceful human interactions. Correct me if wrong.

And just to clarify: my own position is that governments are needed, however we should have very clear rules about when they can step in to intervene or not, when it comes to the economy. I don't believe communism works, for the reasons you provided, however I also do not believe laisse faire capitalism works, either. To me the ideal situation is where the economy is mostly capitalistic, with government oversight making sure that monopolies don't form and that companies comply with regulations that help protect employees and the environment.

Would love to hear what your ideal is, bobb.