keynes

There Is No “Great Resignation”

Twitter and Reddit are celebrating a national victory of labor over employers, who are forced to increase the wages they offer in order to fill an estimated 10.4 million job openings with 7.4 million available workers. Meanwhile, with such a high number of open positions, employees are moving on from their jobs in droves. There’s a nationwide shortage of truckers, nurses, and fast-food workers, grocery shelves are routinely empty, and retailers hoping to ramp up for the holidays are having to pay massive bonuses to get help.

This has been labeled the “Great Resignation”. It’s not.

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Raise The Minimum Wage — A Little

It’s time.  The wage hasn’t gone up since 2009, and a dollar is worth a lot less today.  $7.25 an hour in 2009 is $9.50 an hour adjusted for inflation, and add a quarter a year for a while just to stay even.

There’s people who couch their arguments in terms of a living wage.  Some talk of morality, of exploitation, of fairness.  There’s a big political movement out there supporting $15 and hour on these grounds; they’ve had some success in Seattle. (more…)

Reality Check

It’s getting so I hate to turn on the news.  I physically cringe.  Bear with me here.

Here’s a quick recap:  There was a shooting yesterday, a man I think can best be described as a domestic terrorist plinking away at a Congressional charity baseball team at practice.  There was a horrific fire at a London apartment highrise where, apparently, the sprinklers malfunctioned and dozens of people were killed.  (It’s been called “corporate manslaughter”.)  Congress approved a multibillion dollar arms sale to Qatar, a nation presently (more…)

Food Stamp Reform (Oh, SNAP!)

One of the dangers we presently face is that, with now-President Trump doing or saying something outrageous every couple of days, we’re likely to lose track of the national dialogue on policy.  To resist that trend, let’s discuss something other than what’s happening right now but instead might happen soon.

The perennial Republican talking point on food stamps (actually SNAP these days) is that there’s widespread abuse.  To be fair, this is what their constituents want; vast numbers of calls and letters show up in their offices every single day complaining about this person who was buying junk food at a convenience (more…)

I Am Spartacus!

In the days since the election, rumor and hysteria and raw unfounded panic have swept the Internet.  The number of subjects is immense, and not all of them are horribly far-fetched.

“What is Donald Trump going to do to us?”  This is the question on everyone’s lips, and the amount of terror that it causes is pretty amazing.  It’s almost as though people lack faith in their own government for some reason. (more…)