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The Real Unemployment Scandal?
Discussing the latest US jobs report, Greg Ip of The Economist comments on jobless agonistes:
Hopes
had risen in the past week that America’s economic soft patch was
ending. They have just been doused with a bucket of cold water. The job
market showed further deterioration
in June from May, the government reported today. The number of
non-farm jobs rose a meager 18,000, lower even than May’s 25,000 number
(itself revised down from the original estimate). The two months
together mark a dramatic deceleration from the previous three when
payroll growth averaged 215,000 per month.
The unemployment rate,
meanwhile, rose for the fourth consecutive month to 9.2%, from 9.1% in
May. It was 8.8% in March. The economic recovery celebrated (if you
could call it that) its second anniversary on July 1st, and in that
time the unemployment rate has moved a lot while ending up almost
exactly where it began. America has made almost no progress closing the
output gap opened up by the recession. The
U-6 unemployment rate, which includes people who have given up looking
for jobs and part timers who want full time work, shot up to 16.2%
from 15.8% and the average duration of unemployment hit a new high of
39.9 weeks. More women than men lost jobs. Indeed, since the recovery began, women have fared worse than men, a reversal of the pattern during the recession, as a new Pew study documents. Still, the male unemployment rate rose more last month than the female rate.
Digging
deeper, the details grow worse. Hourly wages failed to rise and the
average work week shrank slightly—bad news for income and thus
purchasing power. The survey of households, from which the unemployment
rate is drawn, shows a much bigger plunge in employment, at 445,000,
than the payroll survey. The household survey is less reliable but is
still a useful check. It tells us the payroll report is not understating
the strength of the job market.
There is no good news in this
report; in the category of "could have been worse," private sector job
growth was better than the overall total, at 57,000 last month. Public
employment fell, for the eighth consecutive month, led by more layoffs
by state and local governments.
The best explanation for the sharp
slowdown in the jobs market is the confluence of bad luck that hit the
economy this spring: a sharp increase in petrol prices, a series of
natural disasters, and the Japanese tsunami and earthquake that
interrupted supply chains in electronics, automobiles and other
industries. Most of these temporary restraints have begun to lift. The
weather is back to normal, petrol prices are down 10% (nearly 40 cents
per gallon) from their peak, and Japan’s disruptions are ending.
Automobile production schedules are ramping up and the Institute of
Supply Management found that factory activity improved from May to June.
Manufacturing employment rose last month, albeit by only 6,000. Even
Greece seems, yet again, to have muddled through its latest confidence
crisis (but keep your eyes on much bigger Italy).
In all
likelihood, the employment data will improve in coming months as
consumer purchasing power and business spirits recover from the fuel
price surge. Yet as we argue in an article
in this week’s issue of The Economist, there is more to the
disappointing trajectory of the recovery than these temporary
restraints. America has only just begun
to deleverage and a McKinsey study has found that comparable episodes
in history have been accompanied by anemic growth and often a return to
recession. While America probably won’t fall back into
recession absent some new shock, its workers should get used to
stop-start growth punctuated with disappointments and soft patches.
Americans are not alone in this; Britain has experienced similar
disappointments and Spain’s outlook is even more anemic. Both share
America’s pre-existing condition of vastly overstretched household
balance sheets and the opportunistic infection of exploding government
debt.
While most of Europe is ahead of America in implementing
plans to arrest the rise in government debt as a share of GDP, America
is just beginning. In Washington, the mood surrounding negotiations
over an increase in the statutory debt limit took a turn for the better
this week as Republicans signaled flexibility on taxes and the
Democrats did likewise on entitlements. This may be good news
politically but it is ambiguous, and possibly bad, economically, if the
final deal front-loads, rather than back-loads, the pain. The steady
bleed of public sector jobs shows state and local government austerity
is already weighing heavily. Federal fiscal policy is scheduled to
tighten in January when a temporary investment tax credit and payroll
tax cut expire. Layering on more austerity would pummel an economy
still struggling to achieve a virtuous circle of jobs, income and
spending. Mr Obama is reportedly pushing to extend the payroll tax cut
for another year. That would be good, but that would not represent new
stimulus, merely a softening of the fiscal restraint already in train.
And
what about the Federal Reserve? Its second round of quantitative
easing (QE) was completed at the end of June. The consensus is that it
would have to see deflation looming to implement more. I think the bar
is lower than that. Ben Bernanke, the
Fed chairman, has always worried that rising unemployment could spark a
pernicious cycle of declining confidence and spending. If its recent
rise continues into the third quarter, expect to see Wall Street raise
the odds on QE3. It’s too soon to write the recovery off, but not too soon for contingency planning.
I'd
say the odds of another QE3 were slim prior to the latest jobs report
and they now stand at 50-50. If employment growth doesn't pick up
significantly over the next few months, QE3 is a done deal, and Wall
Street will celebrate by bidding up risk assets.
The real
structural problem in the US labor market is that there are really two
economies since the early 80s: the financial economy made up of bankers,
traders and money managers on Wall Street and the real economy made of
manufacturers but mostly of small businesses. The latter are struggling
while the former keep enjoying record bonuses. Nothing is trickling
down, and even if it is, it's so minute that it doesn't make a
difference. Even cash rich corporations are in no hurry to hire because
they're producing more with less and they've got no confidence that this
is a sustainable recovery.
And as TomDispatch associate editor Andy Kroll
points out, for all the verbiage about jobs that will be coming your
way, there’s one part of the American jobs crisis deserving screaming
headlines that the politicians won’t be talking about, the 60-year unemployment scandal:
Live in Washington long enough and you'll hear someone mention "east of the river." That's
D.C.'s version of "the other side of the tracks," the place friends
warn against visiting late at night or on your own. It's home to
District Wards 7 and 8, neighborhoods with a long, rich history. Once
known as Uniontown, Anacostia was one of the District's first suburbs;
Frederick Douglass, nicknamed the "Sage of Anacostia," once lived there, as did the poet Ezra Pound and singer Marvin Gaye. Today the area's unemployment rate is officially nearly 20%. District-wide, it’s 9.8%, a figure that drops as low as 3.6% in the whiter, more affluent northwestern suburbs.
D.C.'s divide is America's writ large. Nationwide, the unemployment rate for black workers at 16.2% is almost double the 9.1% rate for the rest of the population. And it's twice the 8% white jobless rate.
The
size of those numbers can, in part, be chalked up to the current jobs
crisis in which black workers are being decimated. According to Duke
University public policy expert William Darity, that means blacks are
"the last to be hired in a good economy, and when there's a downturn,
they're the first to be released."
That may account for the
soaring numbers of unemployed African Americans, but not the yawning
chasm between the black and white employment rates, which is no
artifact of the present moment. It's a problem that spans generations,
goes remarkably unnoticed, and condemns millions of black Americans to a
life of scraping by. That unerring, unchanging gap between white and
black employment figures goes back at least 60 years. It should be a
scandal, but whether on Capitol Hill or in the media it gets remarkably
little attention. Ever.
Indeed, nobody wants
to talk about the shockingly high unemployment rate among black
Americans because they've been largely written off. I'll tell you about
another scandal that nobody talks about, the unemployment rate of
disabled persons which is closer to 85%, and that's being generous.
I
take the rights of disabled people very seriously partly because I have
MS and it makes me extremely angry at how prejudiced employers are
towards disabled persons. One trader recently sent me an email telling
me the following:
no
offense, but that MS will likely be the preventing factor to your
being hired (large orgs fear large disability expense, small orgs can
ill afford any absence) - I know two guys with health issues (a guy who
is a cancer survivor with diabetes, another had a liver transplant)
and group benefits/life-insurance are a factor in them staying in
sub-optimal jobs....plus they save/invest like fiends since they are
parents with abbreviated life/mortality expectations
I wasn't offended at all and told him he's right, most organizations --
private corporations, federally chartered banks and even government Crown
corporations and government departments -- will treat people with a
serious preexisting condition as a liability (one day, I will expose
these organizations and their discriminatory practices). This is why I
decided to teach myself to be completely self-sufficient, focusing on
trading stocks, consulting and business ventures where I control my own destiny. No more sucking up to
anyone for a job! If you don't want to hire me because I have MS, that's your problem and I don't want to work for you!
Importantly,
my MS doesn't control me; I am feeling better than ever and will beat
this bloody disease because I'm the toughest SOB you'll ever meet. MS or no MS, I'll take on the world!
But that's not the case for many who are much worse off than I am and
can't fend for themselves. Many disabled are stuck collecting disability
insurance, living in poverty, all because they are ostracized
from a shallow society who only sees them as a liability. That's the
real unemployment scandal and anyone who thinks otherwise is an utter
fool who's never walked in their shoes and felt the stinging pain of
blatant discrimination.
»
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Well done Leo!
Oxymoronic
Leo the lion.
Lefties always (disingenuously) omit the fact that their policies have led to entitlement enslavement of the Blacks in this country. When Black youth (16-25) unemployment hits 50% (almost there), the real SHTF.
Indeed apberusdisvet. I would add that the lack of principles and core values together with the "I am a victim mindset" keeps black youth from climbing up out of the pit that the past and current black witch doctor leadership has created.
Interesting, I guess blacks and disabled people would have been far better off if we adopted ultra right-wing policies, and let the "invisible hand" of the market do its magic! I'll grant you this much, at least right-wing nutjobs are honest about not giving a shit about blacks and disabled whereas left-wing "limousine" liberals blow smoke in our face.
"I'll grant you this much, at least right-wing nutjobs are honest about not giving a shit about blacks and disabled whereas left-wing "limousine" liberals blow smoke in our face."
Yes, its much better (emotionally for you) to think the one knifing you in the back was a nice guy up until the point he did that.
The thing you will never get about libertarians & fiscal conservatives is we want everyone to be successful on their own merits. Socialists & statists on the other hand seem to want to promote everyone equally regardless of merit.
This is how you wind up with complete incompetents in positions of responsibility and then you feign shock & surprise at the outcome.
The latest...
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2011/0705/America-s-biggest-teacher-and-principal-cheating-scandal-unfolds-in-Atlanta
The thing you will never get about libertarians & fiscal conservatives is we want everyone to be successful on their own merits. Socialists & statists on the other hand seem to want to promote everyone equally regardless of merit.
And then reality rears it ugly head. Not everybody has the same IQ, the same skill set, the same circumstances of birth, the same health profile, the same physical stature and appearance. All of those things impact the likelihood of "success" in life. Not everyone who won the Celestial Lottery admits their dumb luck, and not everyone who came out on the short end is willing to sit back and accept their lot.
How does society address that? Doing nothing is not an answer, because the lottery "losers" won't always go quiet into the good night. I don't have an answer; I just know it's not Ayn Rand. There are no heroes. Accommodation is part of the natural order of things.
Chindit,
I didn't see your comment, always a pleasure.
I found it amusing no one chose to comment on the Atlanta article. Here is a case where the statist mindset was on full display. Centrally planned, centrally implemented with the results as predictable as the sun rising in the east.
Who was helped by their actions? Only themselves. Who was harmed? Those they claimed to have helped.
Its not me who looks down my nose at those you mention. I do care about them, I always have and will.
But I object to being forced to take care of those who can clearly take care of themselves. I object to blind government programs sapping the will to be a productive member of society and find pride in their own success (at whatever level) by making it easier to live off of the state. Its human nature to seek the easiest route. What sort of system chains generation upon generation to it and calls it honorable & just?
Thats toxic to all.
To read the comments of some here an alien from space would think fully half the population of the earth cannot manage for themselves! Its ridiculous.
I am after a restoration of balance. When that is restored, then a discussion of accommodation can begin on the truly less fortunate among us, not before.
Dumb luck indeed.
++++ not to mention we would prefer the gubmit to leave us the fuck alone and we'll take care of ourselves and anyone else within our orbit.
Leo, buddy, what is the illigitimacy rate in the black community? Think that has anything to do with these problems of unemployment and social breakdown? Just asking. And, why are those rates so high in the black community (though getting higher across all 'races' unfortunately)?
+1
The thing you will never get about libertarians & fiscal conservatives is we want everyone to be successful on their own merits. Socialists & statists on the other hand seem to want to promote everyone equally regardless of merit.
Well put.
Thank you sir.
Its true. The provided link is just one more example.
These particular statists actually wound up robbing the children of Atlanta of a primary education for over a decade. Emotionally, to themselves, they no doubt justified it as "helping" children achieve yet another level/grade higher.
But they (the children cheated by the statists) did not merit the grades then or now. Theft can come in many forms.
The cynic in me says it was a way for statists to enrich themselves personally and add honors to themselves at the expense of the uneducated and the poor.
Its yet another damned travesty created by social engineering statists who presume they know best when actually they are completely clueless.
Meritocracy? Really? I used to think you had a brain but reread what you wrote, pure undiluted bullshit.
Coming from someone who has a UFO as an avatar (with all the space & time that entails) and a handle of "boil the rich"...LOL!...I'll take your assessment of my brain with all the merit it deserves ;-)
+++
Us "statists", whatever the fuck that is,(is that a short a, or a long a?)seem to believe that everyone is NOT born equal.
The free market laissez faire system you seem to desire allows the strong to take all the monopoly money and then claim that the losers were all just lazy.
Perhaps in a world where there is land left to develop and exploit there truly is opportunity for everyone. Or at least the riches tend to get spread around because there are so many riches.
My view is that the world is getting filled up with hungry mouths, energy is becoming increasingly harder to find, water is becoming a more valuable commodity, we are probably warming our environment to our collective detriment, and you want to have business as usual 19th century style.
The world needs a new discussion about what it takes to make for a fullfilled life, and how much wealth should really be, or really needs to be in one persons hands. If the world became the libertarian paradise that you speak of the divide between the haves and the havenots would worsen, the last of the scarce resources would be auctioned off to the highest bidder, and then there would be mass revolution by hungry people who would in all probability be gunned down for their "statist" views in thinking they deserved some food.
When you meet some of those starving people in the future, I hope they know how you feel about their lot. Maybe they will eat you.
ranting,
gh
No, the current quasi-fascist system we have now allows the strong not only to take the money via its ownership of government, but to literally print it.
As government has got bigger in the US, so has the inequality between the rich 0.1% - who act as gatekeepers to the money supply - and the rest of us.
If you think we have anything approaching a laissez-faire system at the moment, you have a lot of catching up to do.
"Us "statists", whatever the fuck that is,(is that a short a, or a long a?)seem to believe that everyone is NOT born equal."
Self identification is valued with me even if it is wrong...and I prefer long a ;-)
"The free market laissez faire system you seem to desire allows the strong to take all the monopoly money and then claim that the losers were all just lazy."
The monopoly money is created by statists such as yourself.
A free market in which everyone is free to participate or not seeks to apportion the "monopoly money" according to the success or failure of the participants. If you take on undo risk because of your own greed you can be expected to fail spectacularly. This is not a free market as you can buy protection from a statist...see FNM, FRE, GM etc.
"Perhaps in a world where there is land left to develop and exploit there truly is opportunity for everyone. Or at least the riches tend to get spread around because there are so many riches."
There is plenty of land, both developed and undeveloped. You need to get out of the city or just look around inside it for a decrepit old eye sore and make something of it. No one is owed a wage for simply breathing.
"My view is that the world is getting filled up with hungry mouths, energy is becoming increasingly harder to find, water is becoming a more valuable commodity, we are probably warming our environment to our collective detriment, and you want to have business as usual 19th century style."
Everyone is entitled to their view, it doesn't make it correct.
People like Paul Ehrlich have been peddling his Population Bomb nonsense since I was your age. They were the first to run toward global cooling in the 70's...now global warming of the 90's-00's. They have been consistently wrong, astonishingly wrong, while making their fortunes off the gullible and uninformed. They are statists with what I suspect is a eugenics mindset, that if true, (my eugenics suspicion of them) the unprodutive "eaters" would be the first to go in their utopia.
You should be careful to whom you align yourself...just sayin.
"The world needs a new discussion about what it takes to make for a fullfilled life, and how much wealth should really be, or really needs to be in one persons hands."
We've had the discussion. Marxism lost. It lost because a struggling artist is not allowed to fail, he is supported through the state no matter what rubbish he calls art. It lost because people were not allowed to keep the majority of their production...it was taken by the state to be evenly distributed after their cut off of the top course.
"If the world became the libertarian paradise that you speak of the divide between the haves and the havenots would worsen, the last of the scarce resources would be auctioned off to the highest bidder, and then there would be mass revolution by hungry people who would in all probability be gunned down for their "statist" views in thinking they deserved some food."
We have arrived at a place in society where I stand in a grocery check out line with reduced amounts of cash in my hand paying for beans & rice while watching the fat one in front of me swiping an EBT card for filet mignon and mushrooms.
"When you meet some of those starving people in the future, I hope they know how you feel about their lot. Maybe they will eat you."
I would not be pleasant company should they now waddle up to my door demanding beans & rice to go along with their steak...count on it.
Rant off.
WAFI!
For someone who works in a field where understanding economics is important, Leo, you sure have some profound gaps in your knowledge.
Employers hire people they think will make them more money than they cost to hire. A minimum wage sets a floor below which an employer cannot profitably hire anyone. If the minimum wage is (say) $5.00 an hour, then any activity that generates less than this (minus payroll admin costs and taxes) will have to go undone.
Youth and Blacks have, in aggregate, lower qualifications, experience, and productivity, and thus are less likely to be hired for the marginal-profit jobs that would secure them employment and work experience. If an employer thinks that disabled employee costs are likely to be higher than they are for the able-bodied people, then the only way the employer can pay for the disabled person - and still make a profit - is if they pay them less. In many 'liberal' countries, this is illegal. The result? High unemployment of disabled people.
The minimum wage, more than anything else, destroyed the burgeoning black middle class. It was a classic 'liberal' policy that completely failed to foresee its unintended effects.
That makes the incorrect presumption that these people are only worth that below-minimum amount. You want to immediately give the employer the benefit of the doubt, while giving everyone else anything but that.
You want to fix the problem? Stop giving the employer an even more lopsided advantage, even if it means that they suffer a little. Employers have it too easy, and theres nothing to justify your actions.
The only thing that the minimum wage destroyed was slavery. Now employers want to bring that back through claims of "that's what they're worth". Restore a balance voluntarily, or expect force to eventually make an inescapable "seller's market" for work.
"What they're worth" is how much they can generate, minus the costs of hiring them, minus a reasonable profit. Period. If the company is making more than a reasonable profit by underpaying them, a competitor will hire them at a higher rate, sell at a lower rate, and put the other company out of business.
Look around you. There's an almost infinite amount of work to be done... but any particular piece of work will only be done if its benefits outweigh its costs. By having an arbitrary, rather than voluntary, cutoff point at where this occurs, you are limiting both the overall amount of work that can voluntarily be done at a profit, and, consequently, the number of people who would be hired by a company to do it.
PS - the minimum wage was introduced in the US in 1938. Slavery ended in 1865.
If you'd like to go through life continuing to be a clueless, angry, easily manipulated fool, fine; if you'd like to take the first step towards coming out of the darkness and getting some grip on economic reality - ie, how the world works - I suggest you read this:
http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=476
Sad that you don't see the truth of your first sentence Leo. Instead we have destroyed black families through three generations of welfare that REQUIRE the father to not be around.
Uh But WAIT! In your Reaganesque BushCo Rand inspired America where all one needs to do to function well as a middle class citizen with equal rights and responsibilities is to work 40 hours per week there is thus no need for the fathers to take off is there? No need for welfare at all, and we all know that in republican amkerika there are jobs available at living wages for 100% of the people who can work. Why there are even jobs "disabled" people can do because they do not require arms or legs, and a good thing too because I recall there were a whole lot of kids born with only flippers when their mothers were fed DES and Thalidomide like it was Pez by well meaning corporate giants that had no monetary motivations in helping people, right?
The left might often be fucked up in it's carry through of policy, but at least it is not openly evil like the right. And please remember, you who are so vehemently hateful of anyone different or with lower net worth, you are in the very small end of the bell curve in income distribution and you cannot survive the wrath and justice of those you trample on every day of your stinking lives. Karma baby, be ready.
WAFI
I have had to sit and think about your post. I think you said it best within the limitations of the english language.
I am not limited in Predjuice but will support anyone who wishes to throw the chains off and move forward.
The Dr is so correct. Another is to amass large armies to kill off excess population or conscript slaves.
Throughout monetary history, whenever the liquidity "runs" dry on the lower classes, a social stigma is tied around the neck of those who can least defend themselves. The peculiarity I find, witnessing the phenomena real time, is the selling out of the perceived weaker and oppressed, by those who otherwise seem ‘economically enlightened’ as to the real cause of our liquidity woes.
Hiding health issues can be fraud.
The "animal spirit" jungle has at its core, little room for charity.
The market will weed them out as the monoply game progresses.
A McKinsey study showed that a worker in her 7th year adds no more value to a corporation than a worker in her 1st year, knowing she's only on a six month contract.
A Corperation based in the United States has no value, only when it is located off our shores in more thriving garden with low taxes and good motivated workers along with decent living, then there is value.
Here in the USA Corperations only crush freedom and individuals by way of edicts and memos from Human Resources which is the enforcement arm who hold sway over the weak drones too fearful to leave to find better life elsewhere.
Some of my very best work experiences has been with very small employers who neither have the time or care about such foolishness as a HR Department.
And now these companies have the temerity to enforce what I can or cannot keep in my personal vehicle on the workplace? Fuck off. That is my liberty being treaded on.
Not to worry. As corporations are people and can (now) freely purchase politicians the laws will soon be changed to reflect the needs of the owners interests.
The only sensible response to leo's statist tripe, is, as usual:
http://trololololololololololo.com/
I never dared click that link at work . . . I wish I were at work.
Heh. Work places are full of unsecured machines. If only walking by as a guest to take a moment and click it leaving that worker to explain hisself or herself to a angry HR. That would not be fair would it.
The private Net within the bounds of law (*Snorts derisevly...) is the last remaining stronghold from which you may click a link.
Just do it from a second or third computer that can easily be rebuilt off line while your important machines are off.
There's nothing wrong with the link (except for the singing and never ending trololololol).
Leo, your most critical medical problem is not the MS, but the mental disorder known as "liberalism". The epidemic of black teen flash mobs we are witnessing in every major urban area is just one of many results of this disorder.
His rampant narcissism and blatant sociopathy don't help any, either.
I'm not a narcissist, just a good looking, hard working, smart and naive Greek- Canadian guy who has MS and got fucked by a few arrogant pension pricks who thought they will fuck me over for good. They fired me because they didn't like my message (warned them about the credit crisis in September 2006) and because I have MS. They then blacklisted me in the financial industry. Fuck 'em, I've already proven how dumb these idiots really are. Let them manage their careers and thin egos, I got bigger projects in mind.
Love Canadians - where else could you come up with great stuff like this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfq3c4Cf1Fs
Leo,
I appreciate what you write very much. I may not always agree but appreciate your contribution. I truly hope they find a cure and you overcome this hardship.
So, if I listen to Lil Wayne, does that make me a black, gangtsa, mofo, wannabe?!? <insert rolleyes here>
Whinny misguided youth, however I do give Eminem credit for getting clean and sober and hope he still is.
He now has a much better chance of seeing reality vs. the alcohol drug induced psychosis of alternative imaginary realities which are indeed destructive as hell.
Perhaps he can tout a message of rugged individualism and straight forward, without limitations, pursuits of happiness which is so dear to the hearts of American free men and women and to hell with political correctness and delusional collectivism where force is implemented to make those whom have contrary opinions to dellusional utopian collectivist maligned forced subjugating mindsets.
Here suck on this image cause if our freedoms continue to be subjugated by sick mystic minds this is what we will have.
http://movieclips.com/oK5M-1984-movie-obrien-tortures-winston/
I don't know. Does it?
Your actions make you as a Person. Remember that some of us carry CHL's and are armed for the good of self and others in such dangerous times. It is our hope that we do the best we can with good things instead of destructive flash mob behaviors.
I remember a city (Google Hearst 1968 Riots) that makes today's flash mobs nothing more than a kindergarden squealing and giggling as they scatter to recess after nap time.
The city I was raised in would have had Big Mammy come outside, grab the kiddie thuggy wanna be by the ear and drag said child inside and adminstered proper punishment in view of the entire Neighborhood.
Now those city blocks are barren, empty lots with groups of predators standing on the corner because there are no more Mammys and Papaws to keep order.
" ...the odds of another QE3 were slim prior to the latest jobs report and they now stand at 50-50."
I disagree. The odds of another QE3 were 100% before the latest jobs report and they remain at 100%. There is no other way for the Government to finance its operations.
Ever since Operation 'AIG' (All In Goddammit!!), the policy has always been reflate risk assets and introduce inflation into the economic system to avoid a prolonged period of debt deflation. The problem for the Fed is that QE3 is not politically palatable, but if employment growth remains weak, it will be a much easier sale in Washington.
Agreed.
A decade or so back I went to Laredo, Texas to look at airplane parts. It was a trip back in time. It seemed that 40% of the homes had a business over, under, or attached to the housing unit. It was not real clean and somewhat shabby, but there was business functioning at the lowest level. Not only was the travel time and overhead low, but the kids were playing in the yard. How easy to use the kid next door to not only baby sit, but to help out when needed.
In the last 70 or so years we have gone from a free to complex/regulated business system. There is still some of that old culture left in Texas. A move from California to Texas is a night and day comparison. Texas grows and California collapses. And don’t get me wrong, California is gorgeous and has great people. But, they have run off “dirty business” and taxed the will to stay from those who have the choice.
Industry as we have known it will not be back soon. Cottage industry can not fill the void, but could at least be better than the current situation of “Yes we cant”.
Cities will not change the laws, but if a person operates at a low level and is friendly with the neighbors, breaking the law is justified. Some income is better than none and there is always the possibility of growth. Revolt, rebel, but be stealth about it.