Labor Day

Nothing special to report.

Belladonna (youngest daughter) has a double ear infection and cannot hear.  The kids go back to school tomorrow and she is stressing over that.

I mowed the lawn and made some dinner

These guys approve of the menu.

Seen through the smoke from the grille.

The new garden/cover crop/food plot is coming along well.

Daikon radish.  Hand for reference.

Spinach

Curious cattle.  They were wondering if they knew who we were having for dinner.

One of the ironies of Labor is that the interests of Labor, Management and Owners are merging.  Labor owns a substantial portion of the equity market based on pensions, insurance investments, IRAs and 401-k.  Marx would have a stroke.

Another trend in Labor is the growth of part time workers.  Advocating for more benefits increases the fixed cost component of labor.  Management responds by scaling back to overlapping part time workers.  The net effect is fewer workers with benefits.

I think many of our leaders are guilty of tunnel vision.  Either that or they are morons.  I think it makes sense to pro-rate benefit coverage by number of hours worked. Set 100 percent coverage as some value that makes the venture revenue neutral.  My guess is that would be about 60 hours a week.

That puts everybody's skin in the game.  Joe Lunchbucket  would have to pony up 1/3 of his health insurance, co-pays, pension, etc. payments.  He would not be insulated from what those benefits cost.  Having a stiff co-pay would create a highly motivated purchaser of healthcare services which would drive costs down faster than Obama Care's heavy handed mandates.  The young person trying to pull themselves up by their boot-straps could not be dead-ended into decades of part-time work.  Many of them are working multiple jobs, putting in more than 40 hours a week and they still have no benefits.