by Karl Denninger, Market Ticker:

Last March the world shut down.

Except for…. all the “essential” employees.

Grocery stores.
Hardware stores.
Big-box stores of various sorts.
Restaurants, “to go” (that means no tips, by the way.)
Liquor stores
Weed stores, in some states

And a few more.

A few of those offered “hazard pay” for a short time, and a few more offered overtime as people stripped all the TP out of the stores like the Zombie Apocalypse was upon us.  Just “15 days to slow the spread” was how it started, then another month.

TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

Everyone else was told to hide in their house, and paid to do so.  Even better they were told they could not be foreclosed on or evicted.  Uncle CDC said so and the government clucked in approval, cranking up the printers to hand out trillions of dollars they did not have.

Nobody gave a flying **** if one of those “essential workers” got Covid-19 and died.  Many of them had no health insurance; they were part-time and had limited or no benefits.  Don’t give me this BS about Obamacare and mandates; it was gamed and I saw it gamed with people I know by making damn sure your hours were just under the mandate limits — always.  If those employees wound up in the hospital, tough crap; suck on that $500,000 medical bill.  The rest of the people sat at home and smoked bong hits or drank beer, paid for by those who still went to work and had to pay taxes.  Oh, and that “enhanced unemployment” was largely tax free too, because getting one kick in the nuts isn’t enough so those who still had to work were paying taxes while those smoking the bongs were not.

Then things sort of reopened.  Except… not really.  Many people still sat at home and smoked bongs.  But now the essential workers had their employment forcibly renegotiated.  The bonuses and overtime disappeared but now there was a requirement to wear a mask all the time, and all sorts of dividers and other things were put up that made their job harder.  Tipped people really got ****ed, because, well, in many places there was still no indoor dining, so no tips!   In other places where there was some face-to-face it really wasn’t.  Can you see the waitress smile when she’s got a rag on her face?  Nope.  Is not ambiance and comity half or more the reason you go out to eat?  You sure don’t pay $5 for a $2 beer for nothing, right?

Yes, for a while people went to the places they liked to try to keep them open, even with the bull****.  But attitudes go sour over time when you’re being abused, and paying something for nothing does too, especially when you have to work but the guy next door is still smoking bongs at 5:00 AM when you have to roll out of bed.  And it wasn’t just the customer moods that soured either as prices rose and service went in the crapper — so did the employee’s mood and with damn good cause.

It’s a year later.  The mask mandates — and all the abuse heaped on the employees and the public did nothing.  The places with them had the same epidemic curves as those that did not.  The CDC is still lying and so are a whole bunch of other people, but the attitude has changed and people have figured it out.  Oh sure, there are still plenty people very scared of Covid, but they’re not everyone and what’s worse is that those who are still scared are, to a large degree, now psychotic about it which means they’re the very last people who are going to be pleasant on the customer side of the counter whether employees are masked or not.  People try to claim this divide is political, and maybe some of it is.  But whether it is or not doesn’t really matter; do you want to******off not only half your customers but half your employees too?

Now you have companies claiming “take the shot or keep the masks on.”  That’s stupid, and anyone with half a brain knows it.  Not even the manufacturers claim that the shots keep you from getting or spreading Covid; there is simply no science on that.  Their entire claim under the EUAs was that they stop you from going to the hospital and dying.  That’s it.  What’s that got to do with anyone else?  Nothing!  Never mind all the people who had Covid — there is exactly zero scientific reason for them to take the shots; they already have as good of immunity as they’re going to get and the data is that if you’ve had the disease the shots are much more dangerous.

So why are employers telling those who don’t want the shot — even those who had Covid — to wear a mask?  Punishment.

But wait — was that part of your negotiation when you took the job?  I don’t think so.

What if some governor or mayor mandates it?  So what — is he or she paying you?

And what about the dude who’s been tossing beer cans out his window next door for the entire the last year and the pile is now 6′ high, smoke still rolls out the window at 5:00 AM in the summer months too, while you had to go to work the entire time?

I am hearing repeated reports from all over about people just saying “**** it” and not showing up to work, or quitting.  I heard it again just recently at Kroger; the employee monitoring the self check-outs (all that was open, and only half of them) was asked directly by a customer why the other half and none of the manned checkouts were open.  The answer: People just didn’t show up to work today, we don’t have the staff.  There’s a Help Wanted sign on the door, like so many other places.

Read More @ Market-Ticker.org