Thursday blend: labor shortage edition

Happy Thursday!

James Bond To Stay Male, Will Be Played By Elliot Page

DISGUSTING: Disrespectful Football Player Kneels During Traditional 'F Joe Biden' Chant

Leftists Deeply Afraid Things Could Go Back To Normal

“Normal is like the worst thing ever,” said Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the world’s smartest socialist. “Normal is systemic racism and inequality and people telling me the math doesn’t add up on all my plans—even though I didn’t do any math.”

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An observation: I went to the doctor's office recently to have some blood drawn for labs. I checked in, walked in the little blood lab room, sat in the chair, turned my head the other way, felt some pain, and I'm assuming they drew some blood. But I have no idea if something was injected or drawn, or if the needle was even clean--it happened pretty quick. That's our new normal. We go where we're told, and technicians poke you and inject or draw fluids (if you're lucky an actual nurse might do it, doctors don't have time for that).

I think it's good to question "normal" sometimes. At least be more aware and ask questions. It's like I was on autopilot the other day. It's not just about medical stuff, it's everything. All the little fees and taxes we typically no longer question, or any minor annoyance that is suspiciously easier in which to accede rather than to challenge. I'll try to be more aware and at least slightly skeptical of "normal" things.

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There's apparently a labor shortage. I have kind of been vaguely aware of this the past several months, but it's getting more pronounced lately. And according to this article, it's still hard to find work despite the labor shortage:

Erica Groshen, senior economics advisor at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations and the former commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, told Insider that employers may not be working rapidly to actually fill the record number of job openings.

"They may say, 'Well, we have an opening and we have it listed,' but they may not be rushing to fill it if they're not sure how the pandemic is playing out in their area," Groshen said. "So they may leave the posting up, but not be rushing."

The supply chain industry is having a particularly rough time with it. If you're in that industry, now is a good time to ask for a raise and/or change companies for the increased pay the industry rarely gives.

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There may be a government shutdown. Good. Save us some money, and propose something much more reasonable than a $3.5 trillion bill. 

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Twitter seems to think (or hope) that Dog the bounty hunter will find Brian Laundrie before the FBI finds him.

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Last but not least,

The list of major Biden administration failures

• The Del Rio Haitian border crisis.
• Don't forget Afghanistan.
• TBA

Thursday blend: sundry edition

I am freaking tired today. In related news, it's Thursday.

From the Bee:

Man Surprised To Learn Babylon Bee Has Full Articles To Go With The Headlines

More:

The Babylon Bee Presents: The Leftist's Guide To Defending Critical Race Theory:

Objection: But wait, those last two are facts! Shouldn't we be teaching children facts?                 

Answer: Facts are white supremacy, you racist, fascist, homophobe! 

Remind this loon that facts and objectivity are simply constructs of whiteness. We teach whatever will help us reach the political goals we want; whether it's true or not is unimportant.

Covid stuff:

I honestly don't know enough nor care (even though I know I should) enough to sift through thousands of articles in a likely futile attempt to glean some helpful information about COVID variants. But here's an article written for a 5 year-old, and about as helpful as can be expected:

Lambda

The Lambda variant was first detected in Peru in December 2020 and is now spreading rapidly through South America. A lab study in Japan, which has not yet been peer reviewed, found that the Lambda variant could be more resistant to vaccines than the original strain of COVID and could be highly infectious. Another non-peer reviewed study from NYU researchers found that vaccines generally worked well against this variant.

 

Monopoly money:

How about we don't print another trillion as inflation soars?

A $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill on Thursday faces its biggest test of this week's U.S. Senate debate when the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office delivers its judgment on whether the measure fulfills a promise of not adding to Washington's budget deficits. 

Cryptocurrency crackdown would raise tens of billions for infrastructure plan, analysis finds:

A proposal to crack down on cryptocurrency transactions could raise tens of billions of dollars for new infrastructure spending, as lawmakers advance a bipartisan plan.

Increasing reporting requirements on cryptocurrency transactions is expected to raise nearly $28 billion over the course of 10 years, according to an estimate released by The Joint Committee on Taxation on Monday.

The group projected that, collectively, the provisions in the bill would boost revenue by $51 billion over the same time period.

With any luck, this latest attempt at theft-by-government will be a little less retarded (and I will not apologize for using the R-word. Because the infrastructure bill is retarded, especially relating to cryptocurrency, and you need to lighten up):

A trio of senators on Wednesday introduced an amendment to the bipartisan infrastructure bill that would rewrite part of a section, setting up reporting requirements for cryptocurrency transactions.

Sens. Cynthia Lummis, Pat Toomey and Ron Wyden started working on an amendment after pointing to "unworkable" and "overly broad" language which they say would implement "broker" reporting requirements on people who are not really brokers.

These people, like the bitcoin miners who confirm transactions in the system, would not even be capable of satisfying the requirements in the bill, Toomey, R-Pa., said.

There should be a law, at least with respect to important and expensive bills, that pet project amendments cannot be added in.

😂😂🤣 pic.twitter.com/Fl1FtFKNT4

— Demetri Kofinas (@kofinas) August 4, 2021

At Instapundit: IF YOU LIKE YOUR VITAMIN D, YOU CAN KEEP YOUR VITAMIN D: While they scare you with “variants,” Congress wants to make dietary supplements prescription only.

Meanwhile:

Bury powerlines, keep the power on?

I'm really sympathetic to David Frum here, where he argues that America should start burying power lines like much of Germany has:

Outages are not inevitable. The German power grid has outages at an average rate of 21 minutes per year.

The winds may howl. The trees may fall. But in Germany, the lights stay on.

There's no Teutonic engineering magic to this impressive record. It's achieved by a very simple decision: Germany buries almost all of its low-voltage and medium-voltage power lines, the lines that serve individual homes and apartments. Americans could do the same. They have chosen not to.

Frum goes on explaining that Americans haven't buried their power lines primarily because it costs too much. And it is expensive. And he's right that the rewards of having a lot more underground and more reliable power indicate that there is a case to be made for it.

But wow are there a host of issues complicating the matter. Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway thinks so too:

The problem I see, however, is that I don’t think this project would be nearly as easy as Frum seems to think that it is. For one thing, the United States is far larger than Germany and has many more miles of power lines to worry about. A project to bury every single line in the country would take a very long time and, Frum’s reassurances not withstanding, cost utilities a lot of money. That money would either have to come from increased rates, or from taxpayer dollars. Add into that the fact that we’re not just talking about electrical lines here, but also telephone and cable transmission lines, and you’ve just increased the number of potential players by a pretty significant degree. It took us decades to wire the country for electricity.

Getting the utility companies to fork out serious money to bury the lines isn't going to happen easily. Even assuming the political climate is calm enough, it would take one hideous beast of a law forcing them to, while the cost gets shifted on to customers, taxpayers or both. Making this a national thing would take a huge subsidy.

The best way to do this is to do it locally. Have state and local governments require, where feasible and appropriate, new developments to have underground lines, and similarly replace damaged above-ground lines. But even that may not be fast enough, as I believe this is the policy today in many cities.

Since patience is something of a scarcity in Washington, it will take that hideous beast of a spending bill to get most of the country's power lines underground in about a decade.  But let's not kid ourselves Mr. Frum, forcibly taking people's money to hire other people is redistribution of wealth, not wealth creation:

Burying power lines is a project that could put many hundreds of thousands of the unemployed to work at tasks that make use of their skills and experience.