[hinkley]

Very few labor shortages are real though. There's a lot of feudal toxicity out there and people want to work with someone passive and cheap, not an expert who is 'uppity' and expects their opinions to be objectively evaluated instead of being told to shut up and work (monkey).

There's a shortage of people willing to put up with being treated like shit and not even being paid hazard pay for dealing with management.

And then there's the habit of trying to keep the absolute bare minimum of employees in order to boost quarterly profits, which means there's no float of extra people you can poach if you get a giant project landing in your lap. It's Prisoner's Dilemma and everyone has been defecting since the 1970's.

[mcculley]

I agree that in many cases, one can just apply money and get more labor. But I find that a lot of the value created is in the cases where this is not possible.