Will we see a sudden drop in prices once the supply chain bottleneck clears?

The inverse is also true. Fare wars keep prices low. NY-FL round trip in the 90s was $200. What is it 30 years later. What’s inflation done?

 

I have skin in the game, so I have a biased lens.

“Aviation accounts for more than 5% of our Gross Domestic Product, contributes $1.6 trillion in total economic activity and supports nearly 11 million jobs.”
A4A.

 

People are purchasing a more limited quantity of goods at an inflated rate. Were supply to go up, I think that at least for consumer items there will be an adjustment in prices over time. Back to pre-COVID levels? No.

If 1 employee is doing the job of 3 employees, either the 3 employees kinda sucked, or else the 1 is barely getting by and not doing a great job. Look at some of the awful customer service folks are seeing in some businesses. Now, these are situations in which you have to find efficiency to survive, but the places where the 1 employee is just basically scraping by will eventually hire folks back. In the restaurant industry among others, the dearth of labor is causing businesses to fail.

 

Assuming that interest rates are tightly related to inflation your return will be eaten up by that inflation.

 

If people stop paying these prices, companies will have to drop them .

 

Not true. Expensive speakers last longer.

 

... an example of a massive industry with a business model predicated on a wage of $2.13/hour.

i can't understand the problem.

 

Yep, you are right about that. If you look at the stock market's historical return over the last 100 years, it is sitting around 10%! Great return assuming inflation is not running rampant. Not much I can do about any of this other than hope growth happens and that inflation is kept at bay. That is why I said in an earlier post, I am betting the FED is going to start raising interest rates as I don't think they can deny this inflation any longer. I would love to see 10% or higher interest rates on loans as I will never borrow another dime as long as I live and could care less. But I could use the risk free growth opportunity at this point in my life!

 

You’ve transitioned to a different topic, the point was that businesses of all kinds aren’t necessarily doing just as well with the reduced number of employees, and in tons of cases they would hire most if not all of those people back if they could. 1 server at a restaurant can’t typically do the job of 3 without reducing customer service drastically, or cutting the number of tables that can be sat, or going insane and quitting or all of the above. Whether they make $2 an hour plus tips or $20. If there was no labor shortfall, the restaurant would go back to pre-CPVID staffing assuming no COVID restrictions and demand going back as well. I think it’s primarily white collar jobs where the efficiencies are being found but that’s just my knee jerk analysis.

Restaurant server wages themselves are a different issue. Median wage with tips is $11, so $2.13 isn’t a number to point at. Not that $11 is a living wage, of course. But anyway it’s a different topic. Apparently there are lots of people who were servers who found better opportunities in other industries, at least once the unemployment ran out.

 

Airline fares have come
Down. Quality of air travel is way down. Discount airlines don’t have the benefit costs weighing them
Down. Boomers know this.

 

that is a common perspective.

 

Won't happen until the goobernment allows it...

 

Your bonds are going to go down with rising inflation. At this point-what is higher risk - inflation or the market? Fixed income
Investments are not ‘guaranteed’ or ‘no risk’ when accounting for inflation. If you expect interest rates to go up - get out of those bonds. I bet you have a mix of stocks and bonds which is good. Many people think bonds are safer than they really are.

 

Luckily for us we had stayed the night in Vegas and so we had our luggage with us and our hotel was nice enough to extend our stay. They only way we got out was booking the earliest flight to Chicago the next day and driving the rest of the way home. Plus we were at the airport at 1:30am to ensure we beat the line.

But in speaking with airport and LVPD staff, even they said Southwest was normally the easiest to deal with outside of that. I believe I also recall seeing American go through a similar issue a few years back and being glad I wasn't flying through them. I guess what goes around comes around.

Fun times!
Day of:

This was 3:30a the next day. Luckily it was behind us:

 

I agree that customer service is going to sh!t and most companies didn’t hire replacements for the employees that were let go during the recession and I doubt they will when/if the pandemic ends. companies are out to make a dollar and spend as little as possible to make that dollar. Basic economics.

And one main reason way it is hard for restaurants to maintain workers is because the average person feels entitled and treats their server poorly. They are your servers not your servants. I have worked in the service industry for more then half my adult life. So you can take it as you want.

 

What a nightmare

 

On servers being treated like crap, wholeheartedly agree. It’s across all service industry folks, anyone who regularly interacts with the public.

But back to your first point, about the bottom line. Forget the hospitality industry. There are many industries where loss of an employee has a direct impact on your bottom line. If you own an auto shop, you can’t sell work if you don’t have anyone to do it. Where demand outpaces supply, and supply is directly connected to the presence of human beings to do work, there would be an economic desire to fill staffing holes. If you’re missing out on the opportunity to make $ because you’re understaffed, you’re going to want to hire additional people, all other things being equal.

 

Even in corporate america they laid off at the beginning of the pandemic and have not filled those spots back. I know many, including myself, that have had their workload greatly increased to the point of people burning out and leaving. It's a buyers market out here if you are an employee and work life balance is top of our list now. Our industry has seen a 35% growth in the last 14 months and we had a 30% growth the year prior. We also laid people off in the name of uncertainty due to covid and since people were working from home we were working 12-16 hr days. That isn't sustainable and most of us are over it.

 

Your example is of the labor force where, I agree, the overall product is directly linked to the workforce. You can’t fill orders or serve your customers if the company has no employees or product. In my original post I was referring to and meant corporations.

 

What industry?

I gotcha.