We are seeing it constantly. Truckers badly needed! Fast food workers wanted urgently! Massive shortage of teachers! Miners in short supply! Call center operators needed – apply now! Timber and lumber workers and operators wanted NOW!
But just as noticeable to us at TPOL? We hear and see this in South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah. Companies hurting for people. Some rapidly increase wages and salaries to steal workers from their competitors. It is no secret: we here at TPOL have close ties with mining (mostly construction aggregates), lumber, over-the-road trucking, and construction. We constantly hear and see how clients and friends can not find the people they need. To work to make money, of course, but they make money by doing work and providing products that people need.
It is a multi-level nightmare. To mine sand and gravel, you need people. And you need equipment for those people to operate. To excavate, crush, screen, and load materials. And to reclaim the mined land. That equipment in turn needs parts fuel and lubricants. Which must be manufactured or produced, transported, and installed. Done by people.
Fast food places have limited hours. Or resorted to drive-thru only: not enough people, even with overtime (time and a half), to keep the doors open. Ditto for many convenience stores. And even supermarkets and other businesses.
And the people aren’t there: jobs are begging. Well-paid jobs – generally well above the nonsense of “minimum wage.” We see signs on many business windows, we see pop-up adverts and more.
But at the same time, we hear of people who cannot find a full-time job.
So what gives?
We should be long past the enforced and bought-off “no-work” force of COVID – the beer flu Pandemic Panic. At least here in the Western States. We supposedly have people flooding into the Rockies and the Great Plains who are fleeing from the Coasts. And we are seeing massive construction projects – especially of apartments – across multiple States. Many of which have experienced great delays. We are told it is labor shortages and materials delays. So again we ask, what gives?
Part of it is certainly a growing underclass. Yes, many border jumpers are hard workers and eager to make a living by providing services. We tend to meet a fair number in and at various projects.
But we do see, and hear, those who are coming across that seem only to want handouts and easy living off others. And otherwise spend a lot of time preying on people or just doing nothing good. And they are part of a growing population of native-born and longer-term migrants who also are, in old terms, bums.
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The Price of Liberty 
A misunderstanding regarding education and parents
Parents are rightly concerned about what school teachers are telling their children. But often the concerned and active parents misunderstand the real problem, and all the problems. We often do not recognize the extent of the evil found in public schools today.
The following recently appeared in a social media posting. We’ve sanitized it, but apparently it is from New York State.
First, we need to note that this woman C. is obviously caring, loving, and trying to do her best for her child. We do not fault her for trying to raise her little girl well.
But as lovers of liberty, we need to look at this.
First, as Americans, as lovers of liberty, we are embarrassed, saddened and distressed that these States’ economies have been so trashed that the mother of a three-year-old is (a) forced to work outside the home to make a living, and (b) has been caught in the trap of schooling so badly that a three-year-old is sent to school for an entire day. We would be upset even if it were just a half-day: three-year-olds need to be with their mothers and siblings, not in an institutional setting. While it is reasonable to assume that where this little girl is incarcerated for most of a day is a government-run, tax-funded (public) school, this would be bad even if it were a private school or a daycare center. Children are resilient and many may overcome the negative effects of such imprisonment, but not all do.
Indeed, children are more likely to thrive growing up in comparative poverty than being indoctrinated until they turn 18 in institutions.
But we point out more: professional teachers have no more business teaching 3-year-olds good nutrition (and thereby denigrating her parents) than they do teaching the children to worship the state. Or trust strangers (including especially the ones in blue and black uniforms and/or clerical collars). That is the critical role of parents and family: whether family by physical blood or by faith. And when teachers are unfortunately sometimes necessary, what and how those teachers teach children should be under the control of parents. As close supervision as possible!
Of course, this is a situation which the professional teachers (especially those in unions and the products themselves of government-run, tax-funded institutions) find intolerable. Again, a situation we find sickening.