At least where I live, there is a severe "labor shortage".  Restaurants are cutting back their hours, with some having to close entirely, because their workers are all quitting.  I went to Walmart yesterday to return some things my father had bought, and customer service was closed.  I had to wait in line (drive-through) for almost an hour yesterday at McDonald's, to get lunch for my son.  (Chick-fil-a, where I dined, ran like the Swiss clock it always runs like, but they take great care in taking on franchisees and hiring people, and working there is not for everyone, it's like Minnesota circa 1970, as is Culver's.)  There are spot shortages of goods, my local grocer ran out of store-brand bottled water and I had to buy pricey Aquafina instead.  Things are getting almost Soviet at some places of business --- long lines, shortages, like when you'd finally get to the sales counter in PRL Poland, and the clerk would say "nie ma" --- "there's none left".

What is going on? 

The Biden child tax credits (to which I will be entitled when I file my taxes, Mom and I alternate years claiming our son, thanks, Joemala!) aren't enough to live on, not sure how the economics of other stimulus plans, as well as deferral of rent and mortgage payments (we have neither, my dear father busted his hump all his life, and then made some good real estate investments, talk about a wheeler-dealer!), play into that.  And I didn't know that living in genteel poverty was an American thing.  I thought it was all about endless bling and tricked-out everything.  What are these people living on?  Are they just maxing out their credit cards?  (I can tell you that, late last year, when I had exhausted my investments until the end of the year, and had to carry a credit card balance until then, after which I paid it off in full, your credit rating does take a hit.  Lenders take a dim view of your living on credit cards.  I've made provisions for that not to happen this year, to some extent I can "calibrate" my income and take a 401(k) hit until Social Security kicks in next year.  I worked for it all those years, living like a miser, and that's what it's there for.)

Again, what are these people living on?  I've always heard of these people who "live paycheck to paycheck".  What has changed?

They might be on full time welfare and it has paid well years before covid. They aren’t working because they make more money on welfare not working.  

During 1980’s young people would fight over summer jobs including those at the shore.  
Now Jersey shore full of help wanted signs or stores and restaurants are closed forever.

Plenty of people doing food shopping for other people.  Food stands out in heat for hours and people I wouldn’t trust to touch my food.  

The big reset is people are murdered off.  People are put in camps.  All people will be getting boxes of food delivered to the home.

They want people to stay home while government pays them an allowance.  The government will control every aspect of your life.  Just Imagine.    

The few global hippie pervert liberals of the past are ruling the world. 

1.  People don’t have to pay rent.
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2.  The virus stimulus is an additional few hundred dollars A WEEK, on top of the norm.  Some people are pulling in $400-500 a WEEK (1600-2000 a month) to not work.
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3.  1600-2000 a month, with no rent = like winning the lottery.  They’re riding the good times while they can.

1.  People don’t have to pay rent.
.
2.  The virus stimulus is an additional few hundred dollars A WEEK, on top of the norm.  Some people are pulling in $400-500 a WEEK (1600-2000 a month) to not work.
.
3.  1600-2000 a month, with no rent = like winning the lottery.  They’re riding the good times while they can.

I might be viewing things through old-fashioned, sclerotic eyes that look for such outdated concepts as honor, integrity, and paying your debts, and forgive me if I'm being naive, but isn't that rent, or that mortgage payment, going to come due, sooner or later?  IOW, is it just going to be "written off", or is it not?

I worked for years with mortgage recasts --- where the amount due is modified into affordable payments going forward, with the term of the mortgage possibly being adjusted (i.e., you take longer to pay it off) --- and I can tell you that it is an absolute accounting nightmare.  It's not something that any lender in their right mind, would ever want to do.  I don't know how they're handling it during the pandemic, I've been out of the business for years.  I do know, however, that the entities that own those mortgages --- private pension funds, financial institutions, sometimes even individuals --- expect their monthly passthrough payment.  That's why they buy the mortgages in the first place.  When that doesn't happen, "ain't nobody happy".  I don't presently own any of those critters, used to, but not anymore.  As the Poles say, "not my circus, not my monkeys".

The reason they are letting the renters off scot free is so that the landlords will lose their properties  and Blackrock can buy them up at pennies on the dollar.  Renters all.
 We will own nothing and be happy- Thanks Larry Fink!

I went to not one, not two, but three McDonald's tonight, to get a late-night dinner for my son, before I found one that was open.  This was shortly after 10 pm.  (We are not exactly the Cleaver family, sitting down at a dining room table at 6 pm, Dad in shirt and tie, Mom wearing pearls, but we are what we are, I'm retired, we homeschool, he gets his nutrition, his education, his rest, and his spiritual direction, things which are far more important that "fifties" models of the perfect, regimented American household.  The opening credits of Roseanne, with the family eating pizza out of boxes, would be more like it.  I've never seen a catechism book prescribe dinner times and bedtimes.)

But anyway, I told my son, "this country did not used to be like this".  Restaurants close because people don't show up.  Customer service counters are closed during business hours.  Vast portions of food shelves are empty.  One hears The Internationale playing in the background.  Not good.

I like Chik fil a’sunsweetened ice tea and their greasy chicken nuggets.  It  isnt healthy.  Fast food is unhealthy and addictive. Even diners aren’t that healthy. Restaurant food is high on sodium and sugar.
A better choice is going to supermarket for take out meal but they have preservatives , sugar and sodium too. 


Eating at home is the healthiest and cheapest way to go.  Peanut butter and jelly is healthier and faster than fast food.   Having set times for meals is healthier too.  You will save on medical and hospital bills which can be really expensive.

Where we live, people have died young from poor diets of fast food.  

I like Chik fil a’sunsweetened ice tea and their greasy chicken nuggets.  It  isnt healthy.  Fast food is unhealthy and addictive. Even diners aren’t that healthy. Restaurant food is high on sodium and sugar.

Eating at home is the healthiest and cheapest way to go.  Peanut butter and jelly is healthier and faster than fast food.   Having set times for meals is healthier too.  You will save on medical and hospital bills which can be really expensive.

Where we live, people have died young from poor diets of fast food.  

CFA is, for me, a treat every two or three weeks.  I share your reservations about fast food.  I usually have the chicken sandwich --- no one has ever figured out how to reproduce this, I heard they brine the filets in pickle juice before battering and frying.  McDonald's is close but no cigar.  You'd think the experts at McDonald's would have deconstructed CFA and figured it out by now.

I discovered that if you will take the CFA fried chicken filet sandwich, cut it up and mix it with a frozen chicken tikka masala dinner --- my CTM of choice is Trader Joe's, just take my word for it, it's almost restaurant-quality --- and have some basmati rice and a hearty serving of naan (Indian-style flatbread), you've got one good meal there.  The fat, the salt, and the fried batter in the CFA filet pairs very well with the CTM sauce.  The Cathys really need to consider adding a CTM option, though that might be more of a British thing.

It is really hard to knock the South Asian Indian contribution to American life.  Good food, they come to this country and work their butts off, if their hotels aren't exactly the Ritz, no one is forcing you to stay there (franchised Indian-owned hotels, such as some Holiday Inn Express, are just as clean as their "American-owned" counterparts, franchises have uniform standards and frequent inspections), the people are generally well-educated, they speak fluent (if often heavily accented) English, you never hear of crime problems, and they ask for nothing from the government --- though I have heard they get preferential treatment sometimes for small business loans, collecting welfare would be considered by them to be shameful --- aside from the fact that they are overwhelmingly non-Christian, I don't think you could ask for a more desirable POC minority.  Put another way, if a young Asian Indian male walks near your car, you don't feel the politically incorrect urge to lock the doors, or I don't, anyway. 

(If only the US were 13 percent Asian Indian instead of... I have to wonder what the crime blotter would look like then.  Let me be clear that it is only young black males who are the problem, black females are fine --- some are loud and obnoxious, but not criminal, it is no crime to chatter away on your cell phone in the grocery aisle while sporting glitter-laden "ghetto talons" for nails --- as are older black people of either gender.)