[Toymeister]

Mechanics are a special case. Recall that mechanics are the subject of this thread.

Mechanics, the good ones, want to be paid based upon the 'book' labor rates as they can beat the average times, making an effective higher hourly wage. Indeed dealers charge based upon these rates. However, they pay mechanics a simple hourly wage while expecting production that beats the book time.

Couple this with the higher skill requirements for mechanics and tens of thousands of dollars required for tools and you demotivate anyone from being a mechanic.

[Whitley]

Originally Posted by Stu from NYC

We live longer raise the retirement age.

I did it all right. Paid for college, bought a house, had three life insurance policies and two retirement funds in addition to another life policy with guaranteed 5k monthly income. At 35 I was diagnosed with stage 3 c. After massive chemo and multiple surgeries it was still there. My wife got me in an experimental group. five months of chemo five days a week 6-7 hours a day in two chest ports. Unknown to me, insurance would not pay as it was not a customary treatment or some such wording. My wife cashed it all in to pay. Experimental treatment that we paid for oop. I beat it mostly perhaps because I could no longer afford to die. We never really know what someone else is dealing with. I forgot why I started this diatribe. It looks like I will work my entire life, and I'm ok with that. I have a place in America's friendliest hometown, another in SRQ and rent one in Naples (The last two for work). I live in paradise and deal with mostly very happy people. I'm good.

[Whitley]

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

When you go to a restaurant, do you demand to see the ID of the white waitress who doesn't have a foreign accent? No? Why not?

When you walk into a bank - not even gotten as far as the line for the tellers - does a manager walk up to you and demand to see your ID? No? Why not?

When you are driving through a neighborhood and stop at a stop sign, does someone rush out of their house and demand to see your ID? No? Why not?

Answer: because your skin isn't brown.

The people who are HARASSED with this kind of behavior - are not white Americans. Yes everyone gets their ID checked. But not everyone is harassed for it by random strangers whose jobs don't involve checking IDs.

And yes - every example I just posted in this post has happened to people with brown skin, and similar incidents happen to them all the time. They are targeted and harassed because of their skin color. Puerto Ricans are told "you don't belong here, go back to your own country." Because a) all brown people look alike so obviously these must be illegal aliens, or b) some people skipped the history class where they were taught that Puerto Ricans ARE American citizens and DO belong here. Or possibly both.

There are people who think that if someone has brown skin and works as a home aid, then obviously they're illegal Haitians. And deserve to be harassed whenever they're seen wearing their uniform or scrub shirt outside their client's home.

It happens ALL THE TIME. Unless you're white. Then it doesn't happen.

Where do you live? This happened to me three times in all of my years. Two by police and one store owner in Puerto Rico when I was on vacation at Cerromar. Do you know many poc?

[Stu from NYC]

Originally Posted by Whitley

I did it all right. Paid for college, bought a house, had three life insurance policies and two retirement funds in addition to another life policy with guaranteed 5k monthly income. At 35 I was diagnosed with stage 3 c. After massive chemo and multiple surgeries it was still there. My wife got me in an experimental group. five months of chemo five days a week 6-7 hours a day in two chest ports. Unknown to me, insurance would not pay as it was not a customary treatment or some such wording. My wife cashed it all in to pay. Experimental treatment that we paid for oop. I beat it mostly perhaps because I could no longer afford to die. We never really know what someone else is dealing with. I forgot why I started this diatribe. It looks like I will work my entire life, and I'm ok with that. I have a place in America's friendliest hometown, another in SRQ and rent one in Naples (The last two for work). I live in paradise and deal with mostly very happy people. I'm good.

Glad to hear you beat cancer and hope you are around for many more years

[CoachKandSportsguy]

Originally Posted by Stu from NYC

We live longer raise the retirement age.

wrong answer. .

the funding for social security needs to change:
the current limits on salary are too low, way too low,
not the percentage, the salary top out. .

and since the larger the salary, the less the payment will affect the lifestyle. .

working longer keeps the young people from advancing and takes away jobs from the people who will buy your house when you retire and relocate to TV

[Stu from NYC]

Originally Posted by CoachKandSportsguy

wrong answer. .

the funding for social security needs to change:
the current limits on salary are too low, way too low,
not the percentage, the salary top out. .

and since the larger the salary, the less the payment will affect the lifestyle. .

working longer keeps the young people from advancing and takes away jobs from the people who will buy your house when you retire and relocate to TV

So you want to make it more of a transfer the wealth system? There is a better word for that but right now do not remember it.

There should be a reasonable relationship between what you put in and what you get out of it.

[P A Paul]

The building boom of apartments has waiting list for occupancy, new house galore in non-Village subdivisions. Where are all of those people working?

[melpetezrinski]

Originally Posted by billethkid

Too much of the potential workforce of today just are not interested in working to be paid.

Far too many make out as well or better by not going to work.
Too many programs offering far much money for doing nothing in return.

I have heard it too many times.....why should I go to work when I can make as much staying home.

Progress will not be made in employees availability until we as a society get back to NEEDING A JOB to survive!!

_________________________________________________

I like how you prefaced your opinion on "potential workforce". It gives you an out when someone says, have you seen the HISTORICALLY LOW unemployment rate.

[Janie123]

Originally Posted by Whitley

I did it all right. Paid for college, bought a house, had three life insurance policies and two retirement funds in addition to another life policy with guaranteed 5k monthly income. At 35 I was diagnosed with stage 3 c. After massive chemo and multiple surgeries it was still there. My wife got me in an experimental group. five months of chemo five days a week 6-7 hours a day in two chest ports. Unknown to me, insurance would not pay as it was not a customary treatment or some such wording. My wife cashed it all in to pay. Experimental treatment that we paid for oop. I beat it mostly perhaps because I could no longer afford to die. We never really know what someone else is dealing with. I forgot why I started this diatribe. It looks like I will work my entire life, and I'm ok with that. I have a place in America's friendliest hometown, another in SRQ and rent one in Naples (The last two for work). I live in paradise and deal with mostly very happy people. I'm good.

Congratulations on beating cancer. My wife is similar, pancreatic cancer diagnosis in 2020. We both worked our butts off for 40 years and saved in 401k and IRAs and a rental home in CO. We purchased a 2nd home in TV in 2019 and decided to move to that house for cancer treatment in JAX at the Mayo. 1 year later, she is cancer free so we sold both homes in CO and moved here permanently.

As a parallel note, our retirement savings in the past 8 years doubled twice. At the time we were both 62 with at least a handful of years left to work. We decided at that time life is too short, we won’t outlive our savings so we hit the retirement road in 2022.

I also know of lots of 2nd wage earners in a family in their 50s and 60s who lost their jobs during COVID just decided like us, no reason to keep working. They had enough money. We have friends here in TV that are late 50s who retired from also good high paying white collar jobs. The company I retired from went public during COVID and approximately 2 years later, 10% of their workforce of 3000, mostly senior and executive employees, have also retired.

[Bay Kid]

Hard to compete with free money, food, healthcare, housing. Not enough drive to want to get better. Why work?

[bruce213]

It's not that people don't want to work, they just want easier jobs. It's always been that way. In the right area you can make a living as a dog walker. People make $ off of YouTube, and a lot of stay at home computer jobs. Why bust your butt as a waitress or a mechanic if you can find a better job.

[Villages Kahuna]

Our current labor shortage was predicted by economists and statisticians beginning a couple decades ago when the U.S. birth rate dipped below 2 per woman. Those who study these things repeatedly warned that severe labor shortages would be the result. Our current birthdate remains at 1.64 children born per woman.

The actual shortages have been offset somewhat by improved technology. But the only solution to the problem for the next twenty years, or until our birth rate increases back to 2 or more, is to import the workers we need internationally—something our politicians oppose.

Any program to import labor requires quite a bit of study—what skills do we need, where in the country do we need them, and how will we go about fulfilling those needs? These are things that appear well beyond our government’s desire or ability to accomplish. So in the many years ahead, get used to even worse labor shortages, inflated costs, and supply chain interruptions.

[mntlblok]

Originally Posted by Whitley

I would generally agree with you, however seeing how we spend money I would not object seeing young folks get some. The gov't screwed up college and tuition with guarantees anyway. My college in the 80's was 7900 a year. Today, one generation later, 57,000.00 per year.

Know a young man (very well) who elected to live at home (received outstanding advice) and attend our local "no-name", cheap college, worked after school - until working in the chem lab at that same school, and then earned enough from similar work during his Ph.D. time to cover expenses and to get his degrees with zero student debt. Wasn't charged room and board for living at home. Probably had some help with his cheap transportation. He suffered terribly by not getting to have the proper "college experience". :-)

[Innserelli]

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

Welcome to the new America. Most home health nurses are immigrants. Most Americans don't want the job. Some immigrants are afraid to work now, even if they are legally here, because of the constant harassment just because they have darker skin, or an accent. Entitled folks say "just show your ID and you'll be fine." How many times have those entitled folks been ordered to show their ID?

This lack of willingness to take certain jobs is definitely a problem, however it should not result is abandoning our citizenship. How many times do you need to show an ID in any European county when traveling? If we were actually looking to work in a foreign country it would mean carrying and showing an ID frequently. You my not even be allowed to work since many countries protect their workforce by limiting immigrant workers. For many years, Switzerland has brought in great numbers of Italians to work the tourist season, and at the end of the season promptly booted them out. My kids have lived in England for 10 years, raised their family there, and I know that it is extremely difficult to get permanent residency in England and virtually impossible to get citizenship. The point is that citizenship is important everywhere but the US. We allow non citizens to live, work, and vote and those who come here legally are essentially punished by having to go through a actual process to finally achieve citizenship. I was taught that our citizenship was something to be valued, as it is in almost every country but ours. Sadly, we are throwing away one of the most precious gifts we have ben given.

[Vermilion Villager]

Originally Posted by billethkid

Too much of the potential workforce of today just are not interested in working to be paid.

Far too many make out as well or better by not going to work.
Too many programs offering far much money for doing nothing in return.

I have heard it too many times.....why should I go to work when I can make as much staying home.

Progress will not be made in employees availability until we as a society get back to NEEDING A JOB to survive!!

_________________________________________________

It would be interesting to see you offer ANY proof of what you just said!!
In Florida unemployment is roughly $250 a week. That translates to $1000 a month. Can you live on $1000 a month in Florida?