Well Tim

Private investment hasn't done so much  good for us either

As of today we have shortages out the wassu

Try buying a car or truck,  big haul semi trucks, farm machinery even farm chemicals for weed control

Try buying clothes, furniture any thing and chances are your choice will be limited and delivery maybe 6 weeks to unknown

Have you heard the word shortage lately

Have you seen out of stock, delivery unknown. We have a part that will take 8 months for delivery

Now why do you suppose this has happened

Because the investment and technology went over seas to cheap labor. Yes the technology went with the investment. I was in china and saw the technology going with the investment

Well now we are paying the price for letting investment decide what is the most profitable

Gov't does pick winners and losers. Why was Wall Mart open and the small town hard ware,  closed, in the early days of lock down

 Because investment left our country and now we have shortages, gov't will do some thing, the wrong things such as Wall Mart but some thing will happen, good or bad.

It won't be pretty with gov't in the mix but when investment messes up this badly what can we expect

We do need chip production in NA, we do need home furniture, appliances TV etc made in our country

Share buy back has not done one good thing for the country

Production is what we need and now we have the gov't involved because of mall investment when business  tried to give CEO's big bonus checks for increased share price, with mall investment via share buy backs

Well the country can't live on increased stk market prices for ever

Comes a time when we pay for misallocation of funds

I agree gov't will mess things up but business had their chance and they messed up

So this spending bill is what happens

Because of the labor shortages that are largely due to government largess?    Yeah, I've heard of that.    So,  you think the government is best qualified to solve government created problems in areas they know absolutely nothing about.  

The work shortages are absolutely being caused by the extra unemployment money being doled out. 

My wife runs a plating shop in Evansville Indiana.

They have been trying to hire new employees this year but its been extremely challenging. She says that they have dozens of people apply for the jobs but NONE of them show up for the interview.

The unemployment offices require that people apply for X number of  jobs so that they can remain eligible to collect unemployment.........and lie by saying that they were trying to find work. 

She is going to lose their main plater later this month to Fed Ex. That company is paying $21/hour starting and with better benefits. Her plating shop is only paying $15/hour.

The owner, who is a skin flint agrees with her that they will be needing to increase hourly wages soon to keep up with higher wages being offered by other companies in the area.

Too little data to do a week in review this week,  but we had 9.5+ million job openings as of April of this year.   Normal range is 6, maybe 7 million during strong growth phases.   I've never seen 8+ as we did in March, and 9.5 million?  Yikes!!   There's some kind of imbalance for a number like that.

BTW,  like just about all eco-questions,  supply/demand also determines wages.   

Edit,  for perspective

 "supply/demand also determines wages."

Biden actually explained this back in May by saying that the reason these jobs are not getting filled is because they are not offering people(on unemployment) enough money.

   An artificial imbalance in supply/demand has been created by interrupting the pre COVID market forces.

There are tons of jobs. My wife said also that "anybody that wants to work right now is working already because there are jobs everywhere"

So this plays out nicely for Bidens  case for the minumum wage to be increased. Unemployment benefits actually help make the case for him. 

The more that you pay people to NOT work, the more that you have to pay people TO work!

Okay guys: I have heard what is wrong

So tell me how to fix it

Frankly I would not work for 15-20 or 25 /hr . That is when I was younger but money was worth a lot more then and still I worked for 30 minimum in the oil fields as a tool pusher. No skill required, just willing to get dirty, wet, cold etc. I did not stay long enough to find out what a skilled driller made

I was offered a job driving a truck in the oil sands for 50/hr. Family would not move so I had to give the job up

I could drive a logging truck for 35/hr or an oil pipe delivery truck up the logging roads for 35/hr

So frankly 15/hr today stinks

Tim says we need AI and other technology. That is exactly correct Tim except where do you find enough skilled at this kind of work

NA does not produce. We sold what technology we had to china in trade for cheap labor

So: Quite frankly guys we are between a rock and a hard place

We print worthless pieces of paper for imported goods

How long do you think the world will accept our paper

Russia is already completely sold out of U.S treasuries. They do about 50 % of their payments in USD. They want to do much less in USD and are slowly headed in that direction what with trade treaties with china. Russia has said they will accept euros for NG sold to Germany and other European countries

Have you heard the word inflation. Do you know why we have inflation. Because the USD does not buy as much as it did yesterday.

Any workable solution, ?? Yes stop with the benefits, but rumour has it some states are stopping the added benefits. Is this helping those states. I don't know but would I work for 15/hr??

I am all ears because I heard a lot of groaning about what doesn't work

The business community hasn't done  a very good job with shortages etc

So what will work

At least Biden has zeroed in on the chip shortage. Not saying the gov't will do a very good job but what is the alternative. Do you know how many trucks are sitting at the Kentucky Ford plant for lack of chips. Do you know who makes the best chip making tools in the world. Do you know where they go???

Now if only we could make 2 + 2 = 4