How long can the economy survive this government war against business?
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2/3 of meat processing workers have gone missing — Biden blames “profiteering” for the ensuing rise in prices
There’s a silent shutdown surge culminating across America following President Biden’s vaccine mandate on businesses coupled with staffing shortages after government shutdowns and enhanced federal unemployment benefits that only recently ended.
"Damn this pandemic and the situation we were put in. Business has been off considerably, but the hardest part being the inability to find staff to hire. Despite paying more than any restaurant I am aware of, no one wants to work," owner of Bubbalou's Bodacious Bar-B-Que, Boo McKinnon, wrote on Facebook last Saturday after she locked the doors of her Winter Park, Florida, restaurant location for the last time.
McKinnon is not alone. Other restaurants and businesses are now struggling to keep the doors open, with some citing hesitancy over vaccine requirements and owners simply unable to find workers after more than a year of unemployment benefits from the federal government.
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The threat of vaccine mandates hampering the ability of restaurants to hire has been simmering for months now, with restaurant owners warning in August that encouraging vaccines instead of enforcing them could help keep workers in their jobs.
One poll published this week has already found that 72% of unvaccinated workers said they would quit their jobs if they aren’t offered an exemption from vaccine mandates.
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Biden has also come under fire from small business owners who say his vaccine mandate is proof he is not in their corner fighting for their survival.
"I don’t think they’re [the Biden administration] on the small business side—I think they’re on someone else’s side," said Sharpness, Inc. President Jerry Akers, who owns 36 "Great Clips" franchise locations, Monday on "The Faulkner Focus."
"What more can we handle? What more can a small business absorb with everything that’s been going on in the last two years?" Akers asked.
Meanwhile, restaurants across the nation have closed their doors or tightened operating hours, saying they have been fighting a losing battle since lockdowns last year. ….
The labor shortage is not limited to restaurants and other small businesses like oil change and body shops and retail stores; factories , the trucking business, farming — shortages of raw materials and food and finished goods are all getting scarce.
Maybe when tech and financial types who work from home, and our politicians discover that there’s nothing to eat or buy with their undiminished salaries, and maybe when reservations at the Hampton’s best restaurants become increasingly harder to find, something will be done. Until then, they’ll eat cake; and the peasants are free to do the same.
