Tour d Hoe cancelled

Noel,  I will be back in reno at the end of the month. It would be nice to get the 912 out for a Cruz up VC. I will check in with you when I am back.

Tahoe is a zoo especially on weekends,,its the place to go what with the covid, travel snafu, restrictions, etc.heard everything is booked out thru fall at $$$$rates...

Bummer to cancel but with all things considered, maybe the most prudent decision.

Looking forward to our next get together!

I have recently ventured forth into the greater world out there, post-covid.  And I am seeing the pattern outlined here: the hotel and restaurant industries are struggling mightily.  Help wanted signs are up in nearly every window.  What help they do have is spotty at best. Toured Alaska in June and saw it everywhere.  They are trying, but it's not pretty.  In the otherwise lovely town of Seward, there were only five restaurants open for business, and one of them was closed because, I guess, it was Monday.  with a Town absolutely crawling with tourists.  We managed a sandwich at the local Subway just out of town for dinner.

@MusbJim posted:

Looking forward to our next get together!

@MusbJim

Aren't we all, whenever and wherever it may be! 

Speaking solely about employment and not offering commentary otherwise, the service industry has been hit the hardest for COVID and now, with employment issues, will continue to be hit. Small businesses don't have the money to sit it out, offer higher wages or other perks and what we will be left with is, Demolition Man, where Taco Bell is the culinary hot spot and small businesses are in the history books.

While I have no issue with employee empowerment, there is a common sense line that was crossed months (one could argue years) ago about what one can expect from X job.

If one were to compile a list of "what employees want from their employers" today, you would find a laundry list of things that would be considered insanity a decade ago. There is a line between unfair treatment of employees and unfair requests of employers that will likely not align soon.

While the service industry will likely never (reasonably) be able to offer what job seekers today are asking for, as someone who has a background in this, it extends further than the service industry. The unfortunate truth is, incentivizing people not to work versus working along with selling all jobs that aren't service industry to other countries; it doesn't appear to be heading towards a happy place for the future.

I expected this would drift to a political discussion. First and foremost as far as the employment situation in any resort area, the VRBO. AirBNB. or as I refer to them the VHR industry is 100% to blame for this situation. There are 12,000 legal VHRs in the Tahoe Basin. Since the monster was created about 15 years ago There is simply no rental property available anywhere in Tahoe. Also rents have tripled in the last 3 years. Consequently with no rental property there are no service workers. Even with some jobs starting at $20 per hour commuting on $5 gas is not an option. I was behind Measure T which has outlawed Vacation Rentals in South Lake Tahoe. They will all be gone by 12/31/21. However that was 1400 homes only about 15% have returned to the rental pool. Most have sold a double what they should be worth. The only short term solution is to reopen the immigration programs so we have workers that will take these jobs. Likewise I am encouraging all the young folks I meet to go into the Trades. There are thousands of high paying jobs open for Plumbers, Electricians, etc. Contrary to our parents opinions, College is not for everyone. All the tradespeople I know are very comfortable.

i was blue collar,,did real well mostly thu RE investments...tried getting a plumber?gonna be a week..my son in law is a HVAC guy w his own CO...makes alot,nice home,pool, property,bought my commercial property,,second home in Lake Tahoe...doin way better than i was at his age45..

... the new normal ... gonna be interesting.  The macro-system is busy undergoing a reset.  Don't you wonder what happened to all those buggy whip makers after Henry Ford put them out of work? Times change, shyt happens, not everyone makes out.  I think most do.  Being retired, I feel like maybe I don't really have a dog in this fight.  Except I did have to buy a new heat pump, and that cost me dearly.   I have a small vacation property by the Atlantic shore that I rent.  Last year was iffy, but OK.  This year has been very busy.

My post was actually not political, it is what I do for a living.

Not that is likely matters but I am firmly independent, registered and all.

@Chris MacDonald posted:

My post was actually not political, it is what I do for a living.

Not that is likely matters but I am firmly independent, registered and all.

Chris, I'm with you. You said it all right in the first sentence of your first post.

I quote:

"Speaking solely about employment and not offering commentary otherwise, the service industry has been hit the hardest for COVID and now, with employment issues, will continue to be hit."

Gentlemen I was trying to point out there is no lack of jobs at Lake Tahoe or any other resort. The VHR industry destroyed the ability of the workers to live here. A starting Checker at the Grocery Store gets $21.50 and full Union Benefits and they have 15 openings. They are importing J1 Visas to fill jobs. With a little overtime that is $40k for unskilled labor. Problem is rent for a two bedroom dump if you can find it is $2500 per month. The entire problem would go away if the local government would ban VHRs. They are allowing commercials hotels to operate in residential neighborhoods. I am proud that SLT is leading the way in getting rid of these illegal hotels.

The thing with the work visas is...how will these foreign workers afford room & board any easier than the natives? The answer I always have seen (including in the house catty corner to mine, when we first moved here a decade ago) is hot sheet flop-house rentals. You get a dorm with 12 youngish, smallish, brownish dudes all in bunk beds in the three bedrooms.

It works...I guess. For the guy who owns the house and is raking in $300 a month from each tenant.

The science of economics teaches us that equilibrium will return, eventually.

That would be laissez faire science, right?  We might not be in that situation, entirely.  I am concerned about those who make more by not working vs taking that service job.  Gotta stop that shyt.  Sorta like agricultural price supports or paying farmers NOT to grow anything.  There is a logic behind all that, which I have heard explained,  but it seems pretty twisted on the surface.

... and as to work visas. Hoo-boy. At the beach in DE where I go and hang out some, the deal the last several years has been hiring young eastern European students, mostly young women, to come for the summer.  They get group housing and their meager wages.  Some of these arrangements have turned out to be a bit on the shady side, and the kids get short-sheeted sometimes.  Regardless, they scoop ice cream, and so forth.  There is an industry here, or at least was a year+ ago.  With the pandemic travel bans, no plans could be made and when things sorta opened up, it was too late to process all of that.  So like i said: lots of help wanted signs are up, and local teenagers who speak English are manning the soft-serve.  It is different.

Tahoe is so expensive the workers cant afford to live there,alot live in N, Tahoe which is just as bad and there is Nevada just over the ridge,quite a drive..i dont know how any workers are there at all unless living with parents/relatives..