Why are you on a trading forum if you seem to be opposed to the basic tenants of capitalism? Which tends to be “right wing” believing in investing and utilising capital, individuals empowered as decision makers over the state making decisions and spending on your behalf and financial gains to those that generate more capital. Covid has indeed exposed people to another way of life. But society would collapse if everyone all chose to pursue their passion for dog walking or cake baking working from home instead of their current job. Without people being inspired (even coerced) by the almighty dollar you won’t have anyone doing the hard, stressful, boring, insecure jobs. You might think “banksters” are to blame for the worlds woes. But without the miracle of modern finance we would be about 100 years further back in our development. The problem with the world is people are lazy and ungrateful. We live in the most luxurious times humanity has ever known. We have all knowledge and entertainment ever created to hand in an instant for virtually nothing. We have the greatest access to cheap capital. Can access any corner of the world faster than ever. Medical advances at its peak. Yet society tears itself apart over the fact they have to go to work.
I very clearly addressed the very specific assertion that allegedly dozens of small businesses are failing specifically because of red tape and taxes. I also specifically addressed my personal experience with those two topics as well as the facts related to them. This whole false equivalency idea that facts and actual experience are just "opinions" and the opinion of any random dude with neither facts nor experience in an area is equally valid is just absurd. Let me ask you, how much time do you or the guy I responded to spend on "red tape" in your business? Oh, that's right, you've never run one. That's OK, maybe just itemize the specific "red tape" items your apocryphal friends are spending their time on, with time estimates for each? Maybe list what taxes, exactly have gone up and what that impact is per employee to a company's bottom line? Oh, you don't have that either, but I'm the one who is imagining things? Seriously?
I kid you guys not... yesterday I saw a McDonalds, next to an interstate(!), at 6PM on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, that was closed. No remodeling, no nothing. Just Closed. You can't even go to a friggin' drive thru anymore unless you want to wait for 20 minutes. It's ridiculous.
Honestly, I don't see why MCD has not led the way with robotics in the sector. I mean what is the number one thing that made MCD great? Consistency. A cheeseburger in Boise is just like one in Jacksonville. Ditto the entire menu. I watched a video that was in Chinese that was on Alibaba's website the other day, they were assembling motorcycles, but the company did way more than that. The video was about the company I guess, but the automation was fascinating. I mean we can see vids of GM and Ford making cars etc, but this stuff was light-years ahead. These machines were doing things that require an incredible amount of dexterity. And you could see they were using laser-vision, adjusting things, it was friggin incredible. You can't tell me a MCD could not be 100% employee free. Or at least 75%.
you did not address the specific assertion in the slightest. You just gave your personal experience amounting to a sample size of one business. secondly I also asked you what you would do to fix the situation in your opinion which you didn’t answer. So you either think the problem of difficulty hiring staff is a myth (the data shows the exact opposite across the country as a whole) or you don’t have a solution.
Maybe you could point out where I said the difficulty hiring staff is a myth? Oh, that's right, I didn't. I pointed out a very specific incorrect assertion that the difficulty with hiring was due to "The amount of red tape, employer contributions and taxes". That very specific assertion is still incorrect, and you, sample size zero, have still not provided any justification whatsoever to show that it isn't. While incredibly telling me that I don't know what I'm talking about! Again, seriously? It's interesting the way you think. Apparently you've decided you get to make something up you allegedly heard from "dozens" of small business owners you know, then when someone who is actually a small business owner points out it's incorrect and asks you to support your assertion with data, you pivot to deciding that unless they provide a solution to the broader problem of the difficulty hiring low wage employees, than anything they say is to be ignored and you, again with zero experience in the area, should be who we pay attention to. Do you also make it a habit to stop by the cockpit after an airline flight and make up stuff about flying that you heard from "dozens of pilots" and then tell the pilots that they're a sample size of one when they point out you're incorrect and ask you to support your assertions? Listen to yourself, the hubris and lack of self awareness is just stunning!
Ok, all the small business owners I interact with daily are telling me that the cost of hiring is so burdensome they can’t compete with what staff are asking for in todays market and are getting priced out the market is totally meaningless and the great and powerful Sig says he doesn’t have an issue so it’s all cool.
Covid wasn't great but one of the few positives that came out of it is that many people decided to reassess their career and pivot. We also got a boost in remote work as an accepted part of the corporate scene versus the old school attitudes that dominated management before. Remote work was slowly building a nice niche in IT before Covid but the whole process accelerated during 2020. Some traditional sectors have been underpaying their employees especially in the US where a lack of universal health care compelled some to stay in low paying, soul crushing jobs. No wonder they are struggling to find people. The upheaval is necessary. The companies that pivot nicely are doing even better then before Covid. Some that won't will go extinct. Not unlike what the dot com boom and crash did. Amazon/Apple/Google flourished and Pet.Com and other useless shit went under.
So we're still going with these apocryphal small business owners you "know" or now I guess have been downgraded to "interact with daily" and your zero experience, with no data to support your assertion? OK. First off, it's pretty clear at this point we've established that number 3 is the correct answer to my original assertion. Unlike you, I actually do really know dozens of small business owners (and medium and large business owners) from a broad variety of industries, I was fortunate enough to go to a school where a lot of us ended up as entrepreneurs. And unlike you, I actually meet regularly with these folks specifically to talk about the overall business environment and how it's impacting us. We talk about actual data, like the civilian labor force participation rate and the unemployment rate, as well as talking about what we're personally experiencing and what each of our own broader networks are experiencing. We're all adults with some perspective and experience, so we realize that there's no one reason for the current difficulty hiring low wage employees and no silver bullet that will solve the problem. But in all those discussions I've literally not once heard someone even intimate that the current problem is caused by your mythical red tape or high taxes. But hey, you saw on whatever right wing echo chamber you get your worldview from that today's talking points are red tape and taxes and you blindly start parroting it despite having zero experience, actual examples or data to support what you're blindly parroting. All while either conflating folks you see on a message board to the "dozens" of imaginary small business owners you "know", or deciding that because you got a coffee at the coffee stand on the corner you're now an expert in the coffee stand HR business. Again, why in the world would you think that your opinion is equally valid as those who do this for a living? And seriously, do you lecture the pilots after your fly, it definitely sounds like something you'd do? After all, they're a sample size of 1 and you've I'm sure interacted with dozens of pilots in your day, amiright?