Name: The Big Problem Facing America’s Economy w/ Mike Rowe
Uploaded: 2022-11-09T02:57:01.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Big Problem Facing America’s Economy w/ Mike Rowe' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-11-09. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Big Problem Facing America’s Economy w/ Mike Rowe' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-11-09. Transcript available.

What do you think about like the future of like jobs and stuff? Do you feel
like we're in a scary spot? Do you feel like that's just hype that we're in a
scary spot?
No, we're in a scary spot. We're in a scary spot. Two things. First of all,
yeah, the visuals will define you. It doesn't matter what you say. It doesn't
matter how hard you work. Some people have a difficult time processing it.
Right. It's hard to see people as more than one thing sometimes too. It's like
our brain just wants to make it easy on ourselves as well.
That's right. What can I assume from a guy with a haircut like yours, a ball
cap, a vest, a t-shirt? The honest answer is freaking nothing. There's nothing
to assume at all. But I'm trained to make all kinds of assumptions.
Yeah. And so that thing is alive in our culture and it's alive in our workforce.
And it's just bitching everything up because people simply can't, they just can't
process the cognitive dissonance of it.
The other thing is, yeah, we're in real trouble. I had a guy on my podcast just
a couple of weeks ago, an economist named Nicholas Eberhardt.
Okay.
This guy is brilliant. Harvard, all the abbreviations after his name that you
want, American Enterprise Institute, wrote a bestselling book in 2016 called
Men Without Work.
Just republished it because the contention in the book is now on steroids.
Wow.
And basically what he's saying is, never mind the unemployment numbers, they
don't matter. That's a depression era metric and it doesn't tell us anything we
really, really need to know.
So here's what we need to know. 7 million able-bodied men between the ages of
25 and 54 are not only not working, they are not looking.
They're affirmatively not looking for work. Never in peacetime, never has that
metric existed before.
We have 4 million more open jobs today than we did pre-pandemic, and we have 4
million fewer people in the workforce.
It's really bad, and you can't find an employer in anywhere today who is not
desperate to hire.
So that's actually happening.
So some of the things that I hear when I'm out and about, you hear from some
people that they're not paying enough.
Right?
Oh, sure.
And then you hear from other people that if they raise the minimum wage in some
businesses, then it'll kill the business.
Sure.
I think greed is also probably a big problem that's happened in this country.
It's like you don't want the man who's working with you to also have success at
some point.
It's like – it's exactly what we just said about two things being true at the
same time and people struggling with it.
It is true that lots and lots of people are out of work.
It is true that even more people aren't looking for work.
If I tell you that there are 11 million open jobs in the country right now,
that's not political.
That's just a fact.
Yeah.
And no one can dispute it.
No one does dispute it.
But what immediately happens is my buddies on the left, to your point, when I
say, why do you think there's so much opportunity here that can't be filled?
They'll say, because business owners are pricks, they're greedy, and they're
rapacious, and if they paid more money, those jobs would fill.
My buddies on the right, when I ask them the same question, will say, because
people are lazy.
People are just lazy.
They don't want to work.
They won't show up early.
They won't stay late.
They won't take a bite of the shit sandwich when it's their turn.
They won't do the thing that needs to be done.
So that's how it becomes politicized.
It doesn't change the fact that there's still 11 million open jobs, but if we
want to argue that the jobs are open because the opportunities are shitty
versus the jobs are open because people don't want to work, then we're going to
paint with a really broad brush, and we're not going to solve the problem.
Hope you enjoyed that video, and you can watch another, and you can watch this
one, you can watch this one.
Different options, different choices.
Some guy just brings you one option, not this guy.
Two options.
Watch one.
This one or this one.