THE REAL REASONS WHY THE WORKER WON’T WORK
U. S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said yesterday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” show that:
“The number one reason now that people aren’t going back to work is what you said: fear. Or if they can’t find childcare or schools are still closed…”
Raimondo also said that nothing in the data supported the notion that people are not returning to work because they are receiving unemployment insurance.
Perplexingly, she also informed us that there are 8 million fewer jobs than there were before the pandemic. This morning I am reading reviews of a hugely disappointing jobs number suggesting over 7 million jobs available.
Then the “free money” presentations are pervasive as well. Perplexing…
So, have the virus issues and government’s proffers of faux money killed the work ethic in our country and among our peoples? I doubt that. It is faith and trust in our leadership that is on life-support…
MY TAKE
People are not going back to work because they are not ‘going back‘. They are not returning to their old jobs, or to their small businesses, that have been destroyed by the medical, economic and political forces that crushed what they worked so hard to build.
It is not difficult to imagine the futility of a man once the proud owner of a full service diner faced with the prospect of becoming an entry-level mickey-d ‘associate’ in a cute little uniform. Or if he or she is fortunate, perhaps a manager trainee position?
And within this pall of futility pertaining to the loss of any sense of direction or personal aspiration, the cause may be identified as a pervasive lack of trust.
Our people have been through times ranging from difficulty to extremity long before this pandemic. Our older citizenry remember some of these all too well. But we recognized how it was that the problems from which we were compelled to recover were not created or exacerbated by our own leadership.
Opportunistic medical types and vote-hungry candidates did not figure into our troubles to the degree that they have in so short a space as the past twelve months or so. And as we knew that troubles were accelerated elsewhere around the globe, we had time and opportunity to prepare ourselves for the portents. The men and the women might have to go to war against a recognized enemy. Those who remained were prepared to take up the tasks of support, whether the factories or the plows or the trucks.
However, our present viral enemy, irrespective of its origins, attacked us unforeseen and undetected, that with a velocity and a ferocity for which we barely had time to prepare ourselves as a people.
Hindsight has served to confirm our worst suspicions concerning the vacillating character of the medical counsels, and the immediacy and inconsistencies of the lockdowns along with attending issues ranging from transportation to tyrannies.
But worst of all are the beyond-shameless politicking, the opportunistic utilization of our country’s particular experience of a global emergency to destroy political opponents in a coinciding election year, and to seek financial gain for pet causes irrelevant to and providing no curative for the crisis at hand. Of these the ongoing Trump-Hate-Fest, some millions for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and $15 million for gender studies in Pakistan are only a few examples. Additionally, the revival of earmarks with bipartisan support serves us as a prophecy of further fiscal malfeasance, that with intent.
The American worker is not so gullible as to believe that this malfeasance will not create further crises in the form of an unimaginable debt increase begging for inflation and devaluation.
I do not believe that the people of this country fit the narrative peddled by the bureaucrats, politicians and medical gurus. We the People are not on the whole lazy and self-serving, and We the People do not relish the prospect of surviving on the government dole when we are well aware that the monies they created out of thin air do not really exist except in consequences negating much of a future for ourselves and for our progeny.
I furthermore do not believe that the stimulus checks and the proffered unemployment benefits are sufficient to sustain a household, except perhaps for a household of one. The issue of taxable income reducing the level of net incomes from returning to whatever forms of labor are available has gone without mention.
Additionally I do not believe yesterday’s revelation that the people are ‘fearful’ of a disease with an over-99% cure rate when job safety rules already in place for the most part are a factor.
The real reason why people are not returning to work, aside from the Teacher’s Union power-grab outages, is that of a nationally felt futility, a ‘why-the-hell’ acceptance of what is forced on them not to ‘build back better’ while further waves of the COVID viruses are expected. Gross mismanagement to date is a failure of leadership, presenting the people with prospects of inflationary policy, greater demands for control of our liberties, and futureless non-opportunities in the form of ghost jobs per the publicly insulting let-them-eat-cake offerings of building solar panels and ‘learning to code’.
Our people deserve better. That begins with better leadership, or a change thereof…
Father David+