If one needs more proof that the media is not “liberal”, please, read on.
The media reports “School systems throughout the DMV are facing a bus driver shortage“, “McDonald’s asks 14-year-olds to apply amid labor shortage.” “Cape Cod Faces Seasonal Worker Shortage“, and The Great American Labor Shortage .
Yes, there is a labor shortage, but that is only telling half of the story. The “liberal” media fails to report that there is a labor shortage for any employer not willing to pay a fair market wage for labor. Today, all those on the right and far too many on the left who defended massive CEO salaries as the consequences of the free market, want us to forget all of that and place the blame on those lazy working class citizens who don’t want to work.
Can’t find enough bus drivers? Has anyone thought to offer higher wages? Can’t find a good dishwasher? Has anyone simply put out for bids? What is it about the media that fails, each time, to explain that employers are not offering competitive wages? And no, the amount being offered, no matter how high, is not “competitive” if after several days, no one applies for the job. While I am at it, signing bonuses are a scam. All they do is guarantee that one will have a higher income on ones first year and make less ones second years. Keep your signing bonus, thank you, and just pay me more, now and next year.
Imagine the media running a human interest story on a man on the Cape who is looking for someone to mow his one acre lawn each week and was offering $200 for the season and somehow unable to find anyone. Imagine the same man telling the reporter that he’s also looking for a 2021 Porsche 911S for $25,000 and unable to find any local dealers willing to talk with him. We’d all watch this wonder why this crazy old man thinks he can find either one. Clearly he is out of touch with reality, living in the past, and has no concept of competitive free market forces. But the “liberal” media (and many of us) fail to see corporate America and the employer class in the same light…and we blame the working class.
It will be interesting indeed to see how a real UBI reshapes the American economy.
The consequences of ensuring that every American has access to a warm and dry bed to sleep in, nutritious food to eat, quality health care, and the other amenities of living in a first-world nation go far beyond producing these short-term “shortages”.
I don’t mean to minimize the impact and importance of the threadstarter — it is absolutely correct and right on the money (so to speak). These “shortages” (I use scare quotes because I agree that they are nothing more than a real demonstration of actual supply and demand dynamics in action) will pass, just as the similarly manufactured “shortages” of sugar and coffee passed a few decades ago after their commodity prices exploded.
When no American is required to “trade their hours for a handful of dimes” (to quote the late Jim Morrison), society will find new ways to clean our dirty dishes. God forbid people bring, use, clean, wash, and carry home their own dinnerware from a restaurant.
A large segment of the US population does difficult, dirty, and soul-numbing labor because until now there were no other options. We have been living in an economy that subjugates more than half its participants in a lifestyle that is at best a few steps removed from slavery.
A UBI is the Emancipation Proclamation that will end that era of subjugation. It will be up to each and every one of us to ensure that we replace it with something better.
How many recall that we had a vice presidential candidate from the Republican Party who was the governor of a state that practiced a form of UBI? Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend was expanded by Sarah Palin.
Indeed.
I have the distinct impression that Ms. Palin was not necessarily familiar with this program as governor. For example, she described a 2018 Stockton CA exercise modeled after the Alaska UBI as “socialist” (https://www.newsweek.com/sarah-palin-stockton-california-universal-basic-income-alaska-permanent-fund-869729).
From that link:
Meanwhile, it appears that there will no payment at all in 2021 according to a recently published report (https://www.adn.com/politics/alaska-legislature/2021/08/28/with-alaskas-legislature-and-governor-deadlocked-the-2021-pfd-will-be-delayed/). From that piece:
While the Permanent Fund Dividend is a good example of a UBI that was successful at least for awhile, it seems pretty clear that neither Sarah Palin nor the Republicans are going to provide a constructive contribution towards a UBI for anyone in 2021.
From the department of grammatical pickiness – the media ARE not IS 🙂
President Biden gave a top notch speech today supporting labor and labor unions. It was refreshing to see a Democratic president come out so strongly for labor.
I have to add this today, get it off my chest.
On my way into Boston this morning, I listened to MSNBC on my car radio. I had to sit through listening to Joe Scarborough who makes $8 Million a year and those on his staff – including Boston’s own Mike Barnicle whine and complain about having to wait on the airport tarmac because there were not enough people on payroll to drive fuel trucks, not having their favorite restaurants fully open so serve them at all hours, and having low inventory in stores because there were not enough truck drivers.
There was NO mention that, perhaps, our current CEO: Average Worker Wage Ratio in 1965 was 20:1 and now it is 350:1. No mention that Real Average Hourly Wages for Truckers are Down Five Percent Since 1990.
Nope. Just more of the same old garbage that lazy Americans are sitting on their asses, living large on the $4,000 that they got from Uncle Sam last year to help out with the pandemic. Yeah, I got $4,000. Joe thinks what he makes in an hour is enough for working class folks live large on and pass on taking crap jobs with horrible working conditions so that Joe and his pals are not inconvenienced during their jet travel and can get a decaf latte whenever they wish.
The media is not liberal.