How is it possible that, with American unemployment rates so low, there seems to be such an appalling lack of staff in key trades–in everything from retail to healthcare?
So often we hear, “No one wants to work anymore,” but does that really make sense? People would rather live on ramen cooked on hotplates in their parents’ basements? Live under freeway overpasses?
As suggested at left, it’s more likely that “Few people want to work anymore under truly oppressive conditions.”
Perhaps the truth is that life in the corporate world, unless you’re the CEO, has gone from stressful to hellish–within just the last few decades. From 1978 to 2022, CEO compensation shot up 1,209.2% compared with a 15.3% increase in a typical worker’s compensation. In 2022, CEOs were paid 344 times as much as a typical worker in contrast to 1965 when they were paid 21 times as much.
It’s hard to rejoice for young people, and especially for young parents, whose kids will grow up into an economic world that’s hard to imagine.
Earlier today, I was sitting near two women whose conversation went like this:
Woman #1: I’m so happy to hear that President Trump will be relocating the Palestinians from Gaza, enabling him to give that land to Israel and establish what he calls the “Riviera of the Middle East” along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean.
Woman #2: Are the Palestinians unhappy in their home?
I’m thinking: Well, I haven’t interviewed any of them personally, but they have been living there since the Bronze Age, about 5000 years ago.
Re: the meme here, I wonder what the people living in the happiest nations on Earth would say.
From the 2026 World Happiness Ranking, here are the top 6:
- Finland (7.76)
- Iceland (7.54)
- Denmark (7.54)
- Costa Rica (7.44)
- Sweden (7.26)
- Norway (7.24)
Notice anything?
They are all social democracies. Their average citizens pay slightly higher taxes, but a) they receive free education and healthcare, and b) there is virtually no poverty.
Providing the conditions under which the poor can become affluent is, of course, a good thing. Quality education and free daycare is a good start.
But making rich people richer with tax breaks for billionaires has been a proven failure.
Looks Like Trickle-Down Economics Is Still Alive in the Minds of Conservatives
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