Socialist Utopia

[Rwy in Sight]

Employees have the option to not work for any employer who doesn't compensate them at the level they desire, or provide working conditions they can accept. Employers compete for workers just as much as workers compete for jobs. That's free market economics at its core.

And not all employers get a 'very decent living'. Many try to make businesses but fail, losing their investment. Others put in very long hours trying to establish their small businesses. They take on all the risk. When they grow to the point of needing employees they compete for them in a free employment marketplace. I always liked the maxim, 'If you pay peanuts you get monkeys'. It's true.

Bosses who get a very decent living have succeeded. They may have been or are employees as well as the workers lower on the organizational chart.

If you think it's unfair, go do what you need to do to be the boss.

I would refer you to the arguments (mainly on TOP) about pilots being obliged to accept lower T&C conditions for airlines which make offering bad T&C to be competitive (the race to the bottom). In the cases I am aware the boss did enjoy a lavish life style while offering arguably in purpose a bad working environment. I have yet to meet a small business boss who is like you described and has not put aside a decent sum of money and end up badly should their business fail. Instead we are constantly be told about rich entrepreneurs poor companies (that they shut down leaving other to clean the mess while bosses enjoy the sun in a nice home).

Possibly we each focus on what we like to see.

[llondel]

But the real objection I want to assert is that there is a lot of land available to establish a homestead that is not owned by the government. In Michigan you can still buy 160 acres of land with a woods, a creek, and mostly rich farmland, with a 3 BR house on site for $150,000 or so. The pioneers' opportunities weren't that good, and they were able to make a go of it. If you can feed yourself on deer and the produce from your garden, fuel the house with solar and wood fire, drink well water, and use the solar to power batteries or trade with the grid, your residual costs approach zero. If you can raise chickens, goats, cattle, and plant orchards, blueberries and asparagus, your life becomes even richer. I've seen this done, and the guy that did it, outside Nevada City, California, also raised, ate, skinned and utilized rabbits.their droppings fed to the worms in beds living under them. His bible was 'The Omnivor's Dilemma', still available on Amazon. I've read it and it's a seminal work and a page-turner read.

Catch-22 here. You need to have enough capital up-front to be able to buy the land and house, buy the solar installation and all the other equipment and be able to pay your property taxes otherwise the government will come steal your land.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Ben, I don't think you've answered any of my points. There is no free market. As Llondel points out, you can't start the homestead without the capital, and you can't get the capital without accepting cr@p jobs these days. You mention joining the military, but today one has to accept being sent to sandy parts to get shot at or blown up in a losing war, which is what I call cr@p T&Cs.
I can get a job at the hardware store, but they'll only give me 20 hours, still make me come in 4 or days a week with no set schedule, and I'll spent a quarter of my wages on gas and another quarter on taxes.
I have found that every job I've had in the last 15 years, on three continents, bar potato binning, has had terrible T&Cs in reality and has been run by idiots. And potato binning is only 6 weeks a year.
You list a whole bunch of stuff that now requires qualifications and H&S certificates and....etc. It doesn't need them, but the paper-pushers require them.
Personally, I do have a plot of land and am working on it myself, but it no longer pays me to be employed and pay someone else to do it, which is ridiculous. There are kids out there being taught physics very badly, all around the world, but the ones who know how to do it are not doing it. It's not just me; every Head of Science I worked for before I became one has quit the profession or retired early. I was chatting to two US F16 pilots a couple of weeks ago, and they are struggling to get 90 hours a year airborne; it's way beyond a joke.

[BenThere]

I get the point about the need for capital to establish a homestead, and the job a the hardware store has limited appeal. But I do maintain that if one develops a trade, like plumber or electrician, even handyman, one can build a thriving living. I don't want to paint the porch or even change high ceiling lightbulbs anymore, so I make a list of jobs for my handyman. Last week he came and installed my glass storm door to replace a screen door, a seasonal necessity around here, fixed a failed light fixture, installed two rails of garage implement hangers, placed mouse traps in my garage after I observed mice had invaded it, inspected and installed new batteries in the five fire alarms in my home, checked and inflated the tires on my three cars and gave me a rundown on what he saw I needed to do next. What he did is what I used to do myself but now would rather pay him to do it. I paid him $220, and the cost of materials, for 4 hours work and both of us were happy. As he tells it, he has more demand in our neighborhood, where he also lives, for his services than he can accommodate. I consider that a decent living considering he controls his own schedule, picks his clients, takes days off when he wants, and answers to no one. He seems very happy with his lot, though I suspect he is not paying his taxes as he demands to be paid in cash.

Also, location is a factor. Michigan tends to empty out when the auto industry falls on hard times. Workers go where the jobs are. A recent example was when the shale/fracking revolution happened a few years ago. Young men headed off from Michigan to the Dakotas or West Texas where they could earn $100,000+ doing everyday jobs with minimal qualifications. My young nephew, who had a welding engineer degree he earned around 2008, (I remember that because he would not vote for then-candidate Obama), got qualified in underwater welding, working in the oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico, and now has a net worth (he tells me) over $1 million, and he's not yet 30 years old. He has a beautiful home, a fantastic wife, and drives an Audi A8. He comes home for about a week a month then its off to work again.

So I maintain the opportunities are out there, waiting to be claimed by those with initiative and a strategy to capitalize on their industry and strengths. I have other stories about friends who live independently and financially secure through their mastering of programming skills.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

though I suspect he is not paying his taxes

and that, in a nutshell, is the point. One is highly limited in the ability to make money in a decent job legally.
Governments are banging on about labor shortages all the time. There are no labor shortages, there are slave shortages.
My own provincial government is desperate for substitute teachers, and has the worst science score in the country, so why am I fixing my barn? Because the conditions are awful, the pay's terrible, one has to teach badly (i.e. their way), there's no guarantees, etc. I should again add that I know 5 school principals, all of whom would have hired me immediately if they could because they told me that. However, the Feds took 7 months to do my routine clearance (don't ask), by which time the Provincials had changed the substitute system again to ensure people like me weren't hired. Two of the principals retired early and the other went abroad. They hate it too.
I am fixing my barn in a large number of ways that don't meet the Building Code, because the Building Code is wrong. The Canadian Building Sciences people say so, not just me, but it's the Code anyway. I am fixing it for 6 times less than it would cost me to get a legit builder to do it. 85% cheaper. In fact I am following a building code, just not the current one. There was nothing wrong with the old one for my purposes, except the Government and the big construction firms weren't making enough money out of it.
Your friends are making money by either ignoring the system, or doing work that is so lucrative they'll pay anything. That isn't 95% of the job market.
Here's an example as to why nobody is learning carpentry despite the "shortage".
https://www.canadiancontractor.ca/canad ... ares/7048/

[BenThere]

I read your link, Fox, and came away thinking, "Why can't workers just hang out a shingle offering their skills and work they do to a free market? If they do good word at a fair price they will prosper."

As you were a teacher, I also have a fondness for the legend of the one-room school house of the American pioneer days. A community would hire a 'school marm' from Back East to educate the children, usually with minimal facilities and resources, and simultaneously teaching kids from 5-18 years of age. I reckon the backbone of those teachers fostered the culture of America.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I can teach the entire physics curriculum with 3 balls and an inflatable killer whale. I know this because I've done it. We still have a selection of one room school houses round here...send me on, coach!



You know the reasons why; there'd be no jobs for bureaucrats, no work for lawyers, and no opportunities for political graft.
https://www.npr.org/2019/05/02/71766059 ... ok-scandal

[BenThere]

Can you imagine the challenge those teachers faced, with 20 or so kids in their charge, and the task of teaching from the alphabet to Shakespeare, addition to algebra, along with history, the Constitution, and so much more to bring a child into the culture?

In my next life I hope I can pursue the idea teaching in one of those one room school houses. They did a magnificent job in the American hinterlands as we were growing into a great nation. Looking at the education landscape of today in America, I think we have regressed.

[Stoneboat]

Fox there must have existed a standard for those buildings. That one is the spittin' image of the one I attended from grades 1 to 7. There were windows all along the other side, which faced south for optimum lighting, which also meant school let out at 3:30 PM because it got dark at 4:00 and there was no electricity to supply light. Heat was a pot-bellied stove, and peeing on it before classes guaranteed an hour's respite while the noxious cloud dissipated. There were about 16 kids in mine, subjects were the 3r's plus geography, history, and English lit. One teacher to teach it all and keep order, which frequently led to the strap being applied with great vigour.