Spring Banter

[amarshall]

10 minutes ago, Bostonseminole said:

my wife wants to open a bakery.. i told her no way I'm getting up at 4 am to make the donuts

 

She said their bakers start at 1am. 

[Bostonseminole]

1 minute ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

Robinhood doesn’t have all the cryptos so that’s where coinbase comes in. 

I have some on Robinhood and the rest on coinbase.

i have too many accounts now, need to consolidate.. Ameritrade, Merryl, Fidelity Etrade and now Robinhood..  I like having them because it gives me access to more research reports but still hard to manage

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

My coinbase portfolio went up $40 overnight weeeee. 

[amarshall]

I had 2 BTC in Mt Gox that blew up. 

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

Just now, Bostonseminole said:

i have too many accounts now, need to consolidate.. Ameritrade, Merryl, Fidelity Etrade and now Robinhood..  I like having them because it gives me access to more research reports but still hard to manage

Yea I have amtrade, robinhood, coinbase, ameriprise, and fidelity. It’s fine...I like having the spread and access. 

[DavisStraight]

34 minutes ago, Bostonseminole said:

yikes, getting my 2nd today.. 

Not looking forward to my second, first didn't go well.

[tamarack]

10 hours ago, PhineasC said:

I am sitting outside at my place in DE and I am getting freaking coated in tree splooge. It's literally raining down on me as the trees have sex all around me. I have never seen the pollen this bad. I'm ****ing coated, like a damned porno. What the f*ck is going on here?

Oaks?

[BuffaloWeather]

32 minutes ago, Bostonseminole said:

so what cryptos folks own? trying to expand my horizons beyond biotech..   

ETH, XLM, XRP, Algo, Cardano is my portfolio. I'm up 2k today. 

[Typhoon Tip]

1 hour ago, amarshall said:

morning story #4343543 that small businesses are in trouble now that we've put everyone on universal basic income. I'm looking for someplace to rant but I got rid of Facebook. 

This morning

My favorite bakery can't open early because they have no staff to come in and make croissants at odd hours. There's not enough money you can pay people to be a baker anymore.  The owners are in their 60s and I'm sure they are going to close the place down sooner rather than later.  The other option is Dunkin Donuts . 

Yesterday

My friend told me his small business put an add in the paper two weeks ago for entry level work at $15/hr. No applicants. They upped it to $20/hr last week and got 4 bad applicants. Parole people required to apply for jobs etc. 

My business

Restaurants on Cape Cod  that want to open can't staff their establishments .  Restaurants opening now at limited capacity not because of the state but because of staff. 

The downstream effects of UBI and stimuluses are having a devastating effect on small businesses.  There is a huge undocumented population on Cape Cod (brazil) with their own shadow economy.  We legally need to be able to tap into that labor pool.  

So are we to gather you implicitly disagree with Universal Basic Income ? 

The bold statement above, I have noticed this in the past - these sort of 'begging to get people to work at 15/hr'  stories are not as uncommon as we may think. 

Are they real tho?  Some of it has to be.  I see it my self.  I keep seeing 'help wanted!' signs at the entrances of cottage industry level...sort of mom-and-pop outfits ... bodega this and thats.  And I wonder if things are as bad as we are seeing in the gallery media portrays - why aren't those ends connecting?

I'm not saying UBI isn't necessary or wanted ...etc.  However, I do suspect there are other forces not being very well exposed in the on -going art display.

interesting -

 

 

[Modfan2]

42 minutes ago, DavisStraight said:

Not looking forward to my second, first didn't go well.

Make sure you hydrate before getting it

[amarshall]

32 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

So are we to gather you implicitly disagree with Universal Basic Income ? 

The bold statement above, I have noticed this in the past - these sort of 'begging to get people to work at 15/hr'  stories are not as uncommon as we may think. 

Are they real tho?  Some of it has to be.  I see it my self.  I keep seeing 'help wanted!' signs at the entrances of cottage industry level...sort of mom-and-pop outfits ... bodega this and thats.  And I wonder if things are as bad as we are seeing in the gallery media portrays - why aren't those ends connecting?

I'm not saying UBI isn't necessary or wanted ...etc.  However, I do suspect there are other forces not being very well exposed in the on -going art display.

interesting -

 

 

I disagree with UBI based on the fact most small business can't pay $20/hr for help that won't show up. What happened to $12/hr high school and college kids.  Who pumps gas? This year we heard so many stories of college kids applying for unemployment due to CV.  They couldn't "find a job" so they got $570/week to sit home. I don't know if you can still do this. 

There's a number in Massachusetts and I'm not sure what it is, but it's getting higher where it's more advantageous to sit on your keister than get a job. 

$20 /hr gets people in the door.  A lot of business can't survive on that.   You'll see a lot of automation coming further making the problem worse. 

 

 

[Typhoon Tip]

I'm getting my first today ...

I'm hearing this hydration precautionary from a few different sources.

Is there some actual ( at least ) anecdotal accounts where someone got popped in the arm and 10 hours later said, "f*, I wish I had a glass of water"   ?

I mean is there something very obvious about this that transcends the normalcy that the average person is a nimrod about hydration as a baser health requirement and most operate at a deficit ??

I'm not trying to be snarky incredulous as that succeeds at intimating ... LOL, but I drink a lot of water anyway.   So I'm not sure what/where/why the source for that hydrating thing is coming from.  I'm thinking it just applies to the common denominator of dehydrated people ...

[powderfreak]

12 minutes ago, amarshall said:

I disagree with UBI based on the fact most small business can't pay $20/hr for help that won't show up. What happened to $12/hr high school and college kids.  Who pumps gas? This year we heard so many stories of college kids applying for unemployment due to CV.  They couldn't "find a job" so they got $570/week to sit home. I don't know if you can still do this. 

There's a number in Massachusetts and I'm not sure what it is, but it's getting higher where it's more advantageous to sit on your keister than get a job. 

$20 /hr gets people in the door.  A lot of business can't survive on that.   You'll see a lot of automation coming further making the problem worse. 

 

 

$12/hr work just isn’t happening anymore because you can’t even survive on it.  The ski areas, tourism industry, restaurants, hotels, etc up here are all dealing with it.  They need J1 international labor to work for those wages, Americans just won’t do it unless they are in high school.

My wife is spa director at a local hotel and they went from $12-13/hr starting pre-COVID to $17/hr base wage to work like Spa desk and to restock towels/robes.  Hotels around here need to start at $17-19/hr just to get people to apply.  Hell even McDonalds is saying like $15/hr in Morrisville I think.

Its not a bad thing to raise entry level wages, they are so far off from a livable wage.  Or you can pay $12/hr but you need to supply employee housing.

[PhineasC]

58 minutes ago, tamarack said:

Oaks?

Yep, quite a few big ones around.

[PhineasC]

4 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

$12/hr work just isn’t happening anymore because you can’t even survive on it.  The ski areas, tourism industry, restaurants, hotels, etc up here are all dealing with it.  They need J1 international labor to work for those wages, Americans just won’t do it unless they are in high school.

My wife is spa director at a local hotel and they went from $13/hr starting pre-COVID to $17/hr base wage to work like Spa desk and to restock towels/robes.  Hotels around here need to start at $17-19/hr just to get people to apply.  Hell even McDonalds is saying like $15/hr in Morrisville I think.

Its not a bad thing to raise entry level wages, they are so far off from a livable wage.  Or you can pay $12/hr but you need to supply employee housing.

It's good to pay more in wages, just understand that prices for goods and services will go up as well, especially as the business owners are also getting squeezed by the govt in the form of much higher taxes.

Americans have become used to endless consumption of cheap goods and services. We probably need to tailor that back a little and increase wages. But it might be hard for the average American to stomach, and truly many people don't understand how wages are tied to prices. They think they operate independently of each other.

[Bostonseminole]

Yea I have amtrade, robinhood, coinbase, ameriprise, and fidelity. It’s fine...I like having the spread and access. 

Just remembering all the passwords


.

[PhineasC]

I will also say, should someone be expecting a "livable wage" if they are essentially the towel boy at a hotel? That seems like a big ask and probably not a very natural market outcome.

[Typhoon Tip]

24 minutes ago, amarshall said:

I disagree with UBI based on the fact most small business can't pay $20/hr for help that won't show up. What happened to $12/hr high school and college kids.  Who pumps gas? This year we heard so many stories of college kids applying for unemployment due to CV.  They couldn't "find a job" so they got $570/week to sit home. I don't know if you can still do this. 

There's a number in Massachusetts and I'm not sure what it is, but it's getting higher where it's more advantageous to sit on your keister than get a job. 

$20 /hr gets people in the door.  A lot of business can't survive on that.   You'll see a lot of automation coming further making the problem worse. 

 

 

Yeah.. that arithmetic certainly seems clad in that space alone -  but it could be over-simplifying the beans on the counter in order to add things up that way, too.    I am willing to bet that not all mom-and-pop small businesses and cottage industries are really operating at a shoe-string fragility as they are claiming.  Some are, of course... But people have a way of lying about their zero-line, when zero for them is having to compromise at all ...It's probably not the case with your friend as you referenced earlier... just sayn'   There's no one-size fits all truth about hardship.

It just seems to me at a very basic math, if we create a systemically guaranteed pay-stub that puts any small business out of business, that is inherently sacrificing.  Not sure how that can be avoided, unless there are subsidies built into this UBI legislature that offers restitution to those that were on the bubble and can prove it.   That's really the solution right there - I think... Cough up the spread sheets to show shoe string's being cut by the UBI ubiguity and if they are, and your business is codified in registry ( i.e., propertly tax-coded... blah blah ) .. anyway - you get it.

But all sacrifice is, is compromising assets now, because there is a bigger purpose to be gained.  Unless it is mandatory - that's the problem right there, the "Universal" at the front of the B and I.  But like I said, their should be some sort of compensatory that doesn't dumpster one's pride and joy and reason for living by the blithe momentum of societal machine.

Having said all that... greed is ultimately the driver.  The components that hold the scaffold of society et al toether, over time, inflate. This is normal free-market morality at work...  via speculations/avarice... Given time, are over-valued rivets, so no one or org or agency can grow and build much anymore, without upping costs to keep up.  0 $ people have to make that money to pay rent and mortgage ... provisional ...etc.

 

[HIPPYVALLEY]

1 hour ago, Bostonseminole said:

so what cryptos folks own? trying to expand my horizons beyond biotech..   

Ethereum, Litecoin, Chainlink, Cosmos, Maker, Dash.  

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

4 minutes ago, Bostonseminole said:

Just remembering all the passwords


.

Password saver on phone and browser? 

[powderfreak]

5 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

It's good to pay more in wages, just understand that prices for goods and services will go up as well, especially as the business owners are also getting squeezed by the govt in the form of much higher taxes.

Americans have become used to endless consumption of cheap goods and services. We probably need to tailor that back a little and increase wages. But it might be hard for the average American to stomach, and truly many people don't understand how wages are tied to prices. They think they operate independently of each other.

Oh for sure.  Prices go up.  But if an entire service industry can't find employees the way to do it is to raise wages.  Most around here have resisted that for literally a decade or more it seems.  When I first moved here starting wages were about the same as they were a year ago.  And it was talked about back then.  Finally places are realizing that's the way they get employees.  My wife was finally able to hire people at those wages.

And my wife started in that spa as a college student folding towels at the pool for a summer job at $10/hr... and now she is on the hotel executive team.  Good ol' American dream working your way up to the top.  But high school and college kids seem to be working less and less, it used to be like a large group of high schoolers or college kids that help out in the summer.  Now it seems much, much less than even a decade ago.  Maybe parents don't make their kids get jobs like that anymore?  But just seems like less of that high school/college labor pool that has a place to live already (usually mom and dad) so they can work for an unlivable wage.

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

UBI is actually good for small business. 

[TauntonBlizzard2013]

20 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

$12/hr work just isn’t happening anymore because you can’t even survive on it.  The ski areas, tourism industry, restaurants, hotels, etc up here are all dealing with it.  They need J1 international labor to work for those wages, Americans just won’t do it unless they are in high school.

My wife is spa director at a local hotel and they went from $12-13/hr starting pre-COVID to $17/hr base wage to work like Spa desk and to restock towels/robes.  Hotels around here need to start at $17-19/hr just to get people to apply.  Hell even McDonalds is saying like $15/hr in Morrisville I think.

Its not a bad thing to raise entry level wages, they are so far off from a livable wage.  Or you can pay $12/hr but you need to supply employee housing.

Yeah... part of the problem is small businesses have become accustomed to paying such low wages, it’s how they operate and meet their margins. 
 

it’s a big picture failure. We haven’t paid people a livable wage for a long time, and now many businesses won’t/can’t provide a livable wage because their margins depend on 10/hr

[CoastalWx]

Just now, powderfreak said:

Oh for sure.  Prices go up.  But if an entire service industry can't find employees the way to do it is to raise wages.  Most around here have resisted that for literally a decade or more it seems.  When I first moved here starting wages were about the same as they were a year ago.  And it was talked about back then.  Finally places are realizing that's the way they get employees.  My wife was finally able to hire people at those wages.

And my wife started in that spa as a college student folding towels at the pool for a summer job at $10/hr... and now she is on the hotel executive team.  Good ol' American dream working your way up to the top.  But high school and college kids seem to be working less and less, it used to be like a large group of high schoolers or college kids that help out in the summer.  Now it seems much, much less than even a decade ago.  Maybe parents don't make their kids get jobs like that anymore?  But just seems like less of that high school/college labor pool that has a place to live already (usually mom and dad) so they can work for an unlivable wage.

I don't think the mentality of starting in that kind of role and working your way up, appeals to this current generation. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's the sense I get. I worked a second job landscaping with my friend who owned the business, to help pay for a wedding ring. You won't see that much anymore. 

[Bostonseminole]

At Hynes, , folks in Boston did not get the memo, everyone still wearing masks outside


.

[powderfreak]

11 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

I will also say, should someone be expecting a "livable wage" if they are essentially the towel boy at a hotel? That seems like a big ask and probably not a very natural market outcome.

If a family of 4 could live comfortably on Dad's factory wage alone decades ago, people should be able to at least survive without 3 jobs now.  There's a very big difference between wages and "livable standards" in the past 50 years.  What's the use of having all these jobs out there if people can't survive on them? 

[HIPPYVALLEY]

1 minute ago, Bostonseminole said:

At Hynes, , folks in Boston did not get the memo, everyone still wearing masks outside


.

Doesn’t go in effect until midnight tonight.

[PhineasC]

7 minutes ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

UBI is actually good for small business. 

Since it has never been tried at scale I'm not sure how you can make that claim...?

[klw]

Just now, powderfreak said:

If a family of 4 could live comfortably on Dad's factory wage alone decades ago, people should be able to at least survive without 3 jobs now.  There's a very big difference between wages and "livable standards" in the past 50 years.  What's the use of having all these jobs out there if people can't survive on them? 

Well don't forget the definition of living comfortably is far different now than in 1970.  Houses are bigger, cars are fancier and have actual safety features plus something other than  an airvent and an AM radio, there are now multiple tvs in the house and they are not only in color but the biggest in the house is no longer 19" and  they get more than 3 channels, computers, computers, computers, video game machines, home exercise equipment, there is no longer just one phone in the house that you rent, people belong to gyms other than a YMCA, you don't just go out to eat on special occasions, etc.  

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

4 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

If a family of 4 could live comfortably on Dad's factory wage alone decades ago, people should be able to at least survive without 3 jobs now.  There's a very big difference between wages and "livable standards" in the past 50 years.  What's the use of having all these jobs out there if people can't survive on them? 

Bingo.