One Bad Trip in Aunts Creek

[rps]

4 hours ago, mixermarkb said:

I hope your open positions pay enough to live on.

Some of the hardest working people I know are still in desperate measures, because the jobs they have never did pay enough to support a household, and darn sure aren’t keeping up with inflation. We have thousands of people in this country who have full time employment at Walmart and are still qualifying for food stamps, and that’s just one example. 

Pre-pandemic, it pretty much took two paychecks to make a middle class household work in the US. A lot of people I know just decided during the pandemic when child care wasn’t available to simply tighten the belt buckle and scratch it out off of one income, and found that the benefits of having a stay at home parent in the house outweighed the little bit of extra money they were putting in the bank after paying the (insane) costs of childcare.

Until we have a childcare solution that doesn’t cost most of a full time paycheck, those people just aren’t coming back to work any time soon. Add to that the million or so folks who died from Covid, and the numbers who are still dealing with long Covid or the many after effects of severe Covid, and we have a whole lot of people who aren’t going back to work any time soon. 

Most thieves are just lowlifes who will always be lowlifes, but there is a large number of honest, hard working Americans who just happen to come from backgrounds where Mommy and Daddy weren’t around to pay for college, co-sign for that first car loan, teach them how to manage money, give them Grandpa’s old (paid for) house as a starter home, give them seed money to start businesses, etc etc.

Starting a life from scratch when you come from a background of nothing has never been easy, but it’s way, way, way harder today than it was during post WWII America, due in no small part to the lack of good paying manufacturing jobs. I’m not justifying crime, but if we don’t do some serious work on making a blue collar middle class life achievable to the normal kid trying to claw out of generations of poverty, rather than the rare exception, crime is only going to get worse as those at the bottom scratch for scraps. 
 

 

I hear a fellow voice in the wilderness.

[Fish24/7]

What also sucks about having gear stolen?  From my experience it was getting law enforcement to do anything about it and then follow through . I know we had a terrible time with that when we were hit by thieves. 

Dealing with the law was just as frustrating as getting stuff stolen.  

[bobby b.]

20 hours ago, Flysmallie said:

It's tough to find any employees out there right now. I have open positions in 3 states. You can't even find people to apply for jobs. If you think securing staffing is easy right now I encourage you to give it a shot. 

There are plenty of jobs but people just won't work if the government is going to pay them not too.  As a volunteer I ran the biggest Food Pantry in SW Mo for 3 years that served 300 families every month.  I saw the income from the clients and approved each to get food based on government guidelines.  You may be amazed at the amount of total assistance people can get.  It is one thing to help old retired people who cannot leave on minimal Social Security versus a health 20 - 50 year old who just will not work but yet has a $1500 cell phone with a $150/mo plan as well as Dish TV, etc. and sometimes a better truck than I drive. 

It also has something to do with money management.  The Silver Dollar city Charity organization Love Inc.  (Love in the name of Christ) offered a program whereby the Food Pantry provided food and Love Inc.  provided job assistance and money management training and typically only 4 families signed up and after one or two sessions they dropped out.  It was just easier to go the Food Pantry with the other 300 families.  A few years ago a Task Force was establish by a bunch of ministers and business owners to work on the poverty issue in the area.  They determined it cannot be fixed.

Sorry - End of Rant

Bobby

[fshndoug]

This country is plagued by lazy people. You can get almost all your needs from government agencies and charities if you know where to look. All one has to do is sell their soul to a rapidly expanding socialized country like ours. Whether you agree with the above is entirely up to you. My dad worked two jobs to help support his family. You can't find very many people these days that are doing that. If we quit funding the lifestyles of lazy people by handouts maybe it will change for the better. And also just remember thieves are opportunists.

[DADAKOTA]

Probably need to redefine middle class.  Used to be a family strived to have one good job, a house, and a vehicle.  They didn't farm out the raising of their kids.  Typically the Mom was home and the Dad worked.  These folks typically attended church.  Now, a working Mom and Dad have a huge house, flat screens, and every other convenience one can think of, they use public schools as their daycare, and use daycare when the kids aren't in school.  Others aspire to have it all, yet are too lazy to work and want the Govt. to pay their bills and raise their kids.  Pay attention in the grocery store and watch some of the folks who use assistance.  Many have high end jewelry, top of the line phones, and frequently get into high end vehicles.  I'm all for providing a hand up to those who need it, but am against all handouts to those that don't need it or are to lazy to work.  Bottom line if you can't afford kids don't have them.

[Johnsfolly]

7 minutes ago, DADAKOTA said:

Used to be a family strived to have one good job, a house, and a vehicle.  They didn't farm out the raising of their kids.  Typically the Mom was home and the Dad worked.  These folks typically attended church. 

Pretty much describes the family that my wife and I decided to have once we started having kids. She stayed home to raise them and even homeschooled two of our kids while I worked. Now that my youngest is 18, I'm hoping that my wife may get a job to allow me more fishing time 😅.

[Smalliebigs]

Sorry but, Table Rock is know for this for awhile now. We had our batteries stolen out of our boat there in Indian Point. Hate to sound negative but, that crap has been going on there for awhile now.

[MoCarp]

This is interesting, I recently read deaths of people in the working ages is way way up…things like MS, Bell’s palsy are examples…not small statistical jumps, huge ones literally hundreds of thousands of working people taken out of the labor pool…most states have stopped the hyper unemployment and benefit pay outs...seems we are in the “ smoke and mirrors “ phase of job pay….sign on bonuses, different incentives that are designed to be unobtainable or dribbled out over time to “encourage “ employee loyalty….in the past smoke and mirrors worked, now in todays social media world, it’s hard to BS the potential labor pool long…..our area is long known for the “don’t let the door hit you in the behind, on the way out employer mentality”…..it will be a while more before that changes..until then….

[Blll]

Amazing the lengths they will go to to rob you. We have a 14 slip enclosed dock. Last 4th of July weekend thieves came in the night, swam under the  individual garage doors, and hit 6 of the 14 slips. Luckily my insurance coved it but I make my own rods and they can't be properly valued and out of pocket the deductible. Locked dock, locked slip and now locked rod storage in the slip. police think they must have had a canoe to throw everything in. Only took high end rods & reels, no electronics. We added lakeside lighting .

[Blll]

As an old guy's observation, the lack of "making stuff" in the U.S. is surely a large part of the problem. We sent these jobs away and they won't be back. Both political parties to blame or credit. Sadly, much new technology creates a few new jobs but overall eliminates more. Good paying, 'blue collar' jobs are the ones being eliminated. I had occasion to watch an old movie,"Mr. Blandings Dream House. There must have been 15-20 carpenters working a 5.5 day week. Now the job could be done by 3 guys with nail guns. Progress? Sure but at what cost. Very difficult to put the genie back in the bottle. Was blessed enough to be able to buy a new Merc motor. Waited 11 months! I had a connection with Mercury and asked why don't they add another shift and build more. The answer was they can't get parts that are "outsourced" fast enough so even if the demand is there we can't put people to work. And WE made this mess.  Glad I'm retired and apologize to my grandchildren for the country we've left them. Enough... I'm goin fishing.