Not Employed

Old Market Pub

Our cabal of curmudgeons went to lunch yesterday at Old Market Pub in southwest Portland. The place was plastered with big signs urging us to be nice to their wait staff as it is becoming ever more difficult to hire people, as indicated by the big signs saying NOW HIRING. 

Meanwhile, the Fed-Ex distribution center in Troutdale (far east side of Portland) is missing one-third of their normal complement of workers which means they are having trouble delivering their packages on time.

I saw a story about how supply chains are having problems getting their regularly scheduled deliveries due to a shortage of truck drivers.

Meanwhile, homeless encampments keep expanding. At the beginning of summer this year, the homeless were pert near invisible in Hillsboro (15 miles west of Portland), now they are encamped up and down TV Highway.

What's going on? Last week $25 an hour was a living wage and $50 an hour was first class. Now it seems that those rates have doubled. There's the Federal Government saying that all employees of big employers must be vaccinated. That might explain Fed-Ex's problem. Don't know whether it is because people can't get vaccinated (for one reason of another) or they just don't want to get stuck. Doesn't explain the restaurant staffing problem, unless our state government has required that all food service workers get the shot.

Swimming for the boat

I suspect the biggest problem is inflation. People want more money for their time. The American economy is predicated on the belief that if you keep swimming, eventually you will reach the lifeboat and you will be able to pull yourself aboard and you won't have to keep swimming just to stay alive. You'll need to keep rowing if you want to get anywhere, but you aren't in danger or immediately drowning. However, if the current is too strong and with every stroke you make, the lifeboat gets farther away, why bother swimming? You are going to drown anyway, just give up now and save yourself a lot of work. Do you really need to shell out two grand a month for rent when you can pitch a tent on the verge of a road for free? Hot showers are nice, but do you really need to take one every frickin' day?

Problem is, if wages go up, so will prices. When the Thursday lunch bunch first started getting together back around the year 2000, lunch at the Happy Panda was $5, give or take half a rock, and whether to shell out the extra half a rock for something special or get a cheaper meal was enough to give one pause. Now, lunch runs closer to $20.

Restaurants, and a lot of other places are going to have to start raising their prices, but it's a ticklish sort of business. Raise them too much and you'll drive away customers. Don't raise your prices, and don't raise your wages, and your service will deteriorate and that will drive away customers. And everytime you raise your prices you need to print new menus, which is an additional expense, unless you go to the new QR code menus. Then you don't have to print anything, but how much does keeping a online menu up to date cost? Besides QR menus are stupid, but that's coming from a guy who hates his smartphone.

Bare Bones RV Campground, Sevierville, Tennessee

I still think setting up some campgrounds could help the homeless. I mean, how much does it cost to set up a campground, and I don't mean a Disney-fied version with cut little figures tacked on every amenity you could imagine. I mean some reasonably flat ground with decent drainage, a potable water supply and some latrines. Of course, governing such a site would be the big problem. You don't want the government setting it up because they would be ham-strung by all their rules and regulations. A private organization could set it up. Might even be able to turn a profit.