LTS

No one needs to be as rich as Jeff Bezos, but should Jeff Bezos be punished for having built what so many have flocked to? Just as it is your choice to build or not build an empire. Just as it is your choice what to do with your money. Should it also not be his choice? The only people responsible for Jeff Bezos wealth are the billions who have bought into his product and thus allowed it to rise. Along the way I am sure he used influence and possibly even illegal dealings to make that happen, but the bottom line is that people love Amazon and so Jeff Bezos gets rich. The people are the problem, but its easier to point the finger at one person. The people are the voters. They outnumber the executives. The truth that people don't want to believe is that they are, by and large, sheep. They don't want to be bothered to make change because that is hard work. It requires them to stop watching The Bachelor and start paying attention. It requires them to get involved. We are a society of people who don't want to actually be involved. Sure they'll complain, but as long as things are good enough then so be it. Whether they are burned out from trying, convinced it won't make a difference, or any other reason the end result is the same. The Republicans, in their masses, have put forth Donald Trump. The Democrats, in their masses, will put forth Biden or Sanders. The United States, in its mass, will vote for one of those. They've already voted in the Senators and Representatives who are part of the system. The people don't really want change, they just talk about it and complain about it. It's like posting on Facebook. The people are the problem, the politicians are the result.

So much to respond to and no time to do so. My father was in a labor union. It's because of his experiences with that union and how it impacted our family that I despise them today. They HAD a purpose when we did not have a global economy. In today's world, someone with far less in another part of the world will do the same work, for less. The reality is that the work will move. During the 80's and 90's when I really came into an understanding of how his union operated, I saw this trend hit hard. The newer workers loved the concept of making excellent wages and also some generous work rules. As such, they were implicitly lazy. Sure the job was hard work, when they worked, but they had a lot of time off as well. It should have been a red flag to anyone in the business that the need to shut down lines because global sales were down that hard times were coming. The economics demanded of the union did not support the competition from global competitors. Adapt or die. The union fought incessantly against it and we ended up on strike often. Times were tough then.. go picket but don't get paid. Ultimately the union had to concede because they had no power. The company meanwhile was planning to move overseas anyway. So they would give just enough to keep the lights on until such day that boom. Thankfully my father was able to retire during one of those negotiations. But the refusal of the Union to recognize a global economy and its impact led us to hard times. These days China, and other countries, are seeing their workers impacted much like the US worker was in the pictures/video you've posted above. Some day, perhaps, the overall working conditions will improve, but they are not operating under the same government structures or social ideals. It's hard to say. All I can post at this point in time.

I'd probably be as amused as the next person. If you want to post some of those, start a new thread though. If it gets out of hand we'll shut it down. I could be asking for trouble here.

The rinks in Rochester are shutting down. Lakeshore and Bill Gray's have. Interestingly Francois Methot was out advertising hockey clinics in the middle of the day "now that school is closed". Not sure if that has changed and Rochester Ice Center has closed. Paul Louis announced it was staying open. Those two rinks I believe are owned by the same group so it would make sense. I'll be curious if that sticks. My kid is supposed to start a Spring League at Paul Louis in April.. expect that to not happen. My kids are still on school time. They are getting work from their teachers and even if they weren't they would be on school time. This isn't a vacation. If our school wasn't providing materials we'd have inserted them into a home schooling curriculum.

You've jumped into this conversation at the wrong point. I never said I was not grateful for the cleaning staff. I am stating reality. Your rebuttal proves the point. Few CAN be surgeons, few WANT to clean. However, the natural conclusion from that statement is that "Most surgeons could clean hospitals if they wanted to whereas most cleaning staff could not be surgeons." Why do people clean the hospitals? Because they are able to and it pays. The same reason people clean bathrooms in the airport. The same reason people do any of the jobs featured on Dirty Jobs. There are no shortage of jobs that most people would find far worse than cleaning hospital rooms. People will still do it because it's needed and it pays.

Probably a good thing that you've been doing all that exercise lately to get in shape. I would think that will serve to your benefit. Good luck buddy. I am curious what kind of financial measures are put in place to protect small businesses. At the same time, I do think, what would your aerial studio (in this example) do if the place burned to the ground? Naturally (hopefully) they would have insurance, but would the money be provided back quick enough to save the business? It happens in a lot of cases of fire, that the small business doesn't recover. Same for floods and other disasters. Without some level of relief I would imagine there will be a lot of bankruptcies and those will hurt the economy even more. At some point I think there will be a plan floated to help resolve these issues because the impact of not doing so will be far greater. Don't live without the hope.

You know what's funny? I worked in healthcare for 11 years. At one point the cleaning staff had enough of something and put up a stink about something. I wasn't involved. The end result? I had to clean my own desk and take my own trash down the hall to a central collection point. The janitor wasn't that important to me. It was annoying, but obviously I can clean my house and take out my own garbage so I could handle the office. It wasn't that much overhead. Rooms can be disinfected by people other than janitors. It's more efficient to have people dedicated to doing so in order to allow the specially trained more time to do their work. Janitors are important in that it allows doctors to save more lives. But, without the doctors, the janitors won't be there because there are no patients. This is the reality. I worked in IT for a long time. I was a cost center and it was drilled into our heads that we were nothing more than an overhead. We all knew that things would not work without us, but that didn't mean there wasn't some other guy waiting to take my spot or another company they could outsource to if we weren't good enough. We're all replaceable at some point.

Social distancing will slow the speed at which this occurs but that's the point. Inundating the health care system would most likely lead to much bigger issues. Unfortunately we just need to ride it out. Scary right there. Co-worker just texted me tonight that her 4 year old is going into the doctor tomorrow morning with flu-like symptoms. She's highly asthmatic to boot. She managed a weak joke "Didn't ever think I'd be pulling for my kid to have the flu." I hope your family gets through it and the kids aren't impacted.

I've never been one to define who is more important. Balance is the key. The perfectly natural opposition statement to your question is that the janitor doesn't have a job if the sales manager is not out there earning revenue for the company. So in a time of crisis they'd both be unemployed and equally ineffective. By and large I don't think people push themselves very hard. Some do and succeed greatly, some do and never seem to get very far. It's a mix. All I know is that I now know a crap ton more about welding than I did 24 hours ago.

Or maybe it's because people keep ignoring the recommendations so they need to make it sound more severe or its become more severe because people keep ignoring recommendations... For something that takes such a long time to incubate the time period to know if things have adjusted is drawn out.

This is what I referred to before. What is the living wage? Are you defining that based off what you feel people SHOULD have versus what they NEED? Due to the general preponderance of society to be materialistic many people live beyond their means. Those who do so are actually getting a living wage, but are so foolish in how they handle their money that it seems like they are not. People will question the situation. Jobs that pay $X are not meant to be career jobs but rather are jobs that are designed to served in temporarily while those people work themselves up the ladder (no not everyone can, but most can). If you paid everyone "living wage" what do you think that would do to the cost of living? What is the cost of a large cheese and pepperoni pizza when employees who make them get paid $20/hr? Around here those pizzas are already $20+. There are thousands of what-ifs.. there are millions of didn't try or did make excuses. You can find the exceptions, but don't ignore the majority of situations. People are irrational and as such they make decisions that hinder them in many ways. No one wants to hear it, but that does not make it false. My wife runs an organization that is geographically bound to the southern shore of Lake Ontario. We are a single income family so she can spend time volunteering to run this organization. I work in a volatile field where I've been moved involuntarily between jobs 3 times in 7 years. She's done this for nearly 25 years and yet we've planned that should I lose my job we are most likely going to be moving out of the state before I get my next job. The market sucks in Rochester. As it is, before COVID, I had to fly to the HQ in Arkansas (not Wal-mart) once a month. We're prepared to uproot our kids and distance ourselves from family because we have to find a way to make ends meet. That of course is MY situation and it isn't indicative of everyone else either. Everyone's situation is different. When I moved into my current house our neighbor was a carpenter and had a hard time finding consistent work. They were in above their heads on the house they bought. They ultimately moved into an apartment in our town. This was their decision rather than uprooting their child and moving south where there were plenty of jobs. Their choice.. they made it work. I have another friend whose wife was just diagnosed with a brain tumor. He's had all kinds of health problems throughout his life that have prevented him holding down a steady job. He's done all kinds of side projects to try and earn money while she is a cashier at Wegmans. They live paycheck to paycheck and now they are in really deep because she won't be working, he barely makes any money, and they will have a mountain of bills to pay. Now, I've questioned some of his choices in the past as I think he's capable of finding a better way to earn a living, but at the same time I am donating to help them get through this surgery. Maybe. Maybe they made a choice to care for their children or parents and also need to accept the constraints that will put on their lives by choosing to do so. Maybe Johnny had a kid at 17... maybe he made a decision then that will impact him for the rest of his life. Maybe Jordan won't be able to have everything that someone who is smarter and more capable can have. Does that mean Jordan should be given it anyway? And just maybe they are all unfortunate circumstances where they need the good will of society to get through. Because maybe it was all out of their control because sometimes loads of really bad crap happen. It's that point that you hope they've got a great social network that can help them get through the bad times. Whether it's their employer, their friends, obtaining assistance from a charity that helps those in need or with a particular need, or at the end a government assistance program.

You know what? There are people who need additional help in this world, they can't always do it by themselves. And you know what? There are people who take advantage of programs put in place to help those people. And you know what else? There are people who make really bad decisions and increase their odds of ending up in bad situations. Society could be about helping each other out but at some point there will be a bit of scrutiny paid to the guy who seems to always be taking and never giving. It used to be that you knew everyone was trying to do their fair share but these days a lot of people make really bad decisions and because of that people often want to know that their money is going to be put to good use. Of course we're edging into more political discussions at this point. I'd should focus on what PSE could and will do for their employees. I'm still waiting to see.

There's a point in the Creed games where it gets repetitive and more importantly you can combat your way through almost anything. They are a lot of fun to run around in however. I do enjoy them.

I'd like to have the time to dig into this and get information before I go around casting judgment. Are the workers employees of PSE? Are the workers in other arenas employees of their respective franchises? I do think there's an aspect that regardless stepping up to create a program to help these employees out would be good. Of course the thinking seems to be that they'll get paid when they work the games later so why pay them now. I think the program needs to be able to perhaps pay them partial salaries to keep some level of income flowing. That said, there is also an aspect of, you create your own reality. I once had a job where I was paid hourly and due to a natural disaster I was unable to report to work and I didn't get paid. That event went a long way to making sure I was never an hourly employee again. That said, not all of the people working at the arena have the same options available to them that I did. It's a tough call all around. People will be hit by this, in all walks of life.

Well, at least the thread made it back. I did not have tickets and I was waiting to see if people even brought it up. We'll all wait with baited breath at this point to see what happens. But, I love hockey and hanging with people on this forum is always a great time so I am still certain that if I can get some secondary tix, I will.

I did read all of this. This is a great post. I'm not qualified to agree or not agree as I was very much not "in Buffalo" during this time, but these kinds of posts should be encouraged around here. Well done. I was always a fan of TC and felt horrible about his health issues. At that time I was not really "in Rochester" either so for the most part I was between and while I was always a fan, I was not as clued in as I was earlier on and then later on. Love this post..

They have not closed anything in Monroe County yet. The word we got today is that they are set for online teaching but will use it only if they have to. Actually got a really good email from the district with links to different policies from NYS, CDC, etc.

The Monroe County Superintendents basically said they are monitoring. But prepare for child care needs should things change. I'm expecting the online schooling approach to be taken up. It's super easy to do and in our school at least all kinds have computers and the school has the tools to deliver online video presentations.

I mean.. I went out to the liquor store.. I was out of bourbon, gin, and rum. But this time, just to be safe, in addition to the normal rum I also bought overproof Plantation rum 69% alcohol. We can't have germs living on my ice cubes. So.. that's my level of panic. ?

NPR had a discussion with one of the Jazz journalists. When the Jazz player failed the influenza test they finally gave the COVID test. When he tested positive the OKC health department prioritized testing for the team, etc. That's why it happened. The journalist has NOT had the test however. He had already returned to Utah. He heard the news last night and pulled himself and his kid from the public event they were at and has self-quarantined for now. Send me too.. although I have ways to reach out to him... I am lazy. ?

I think the tipping point has been reached and at this point the risk of NOT acting puts you in line for some level of bad publicity or worse. Everyone is canceling everything. Our school just shutdown any overnight travel until April 12. It's only a matter of time before they cancel all sports and possibly put the kinds into online learning. It's happening. I see no way the AHL does not respond in a similar fashion at this point.

Hold on there captain. I'm not sure we want those there either. ? I'm just focused on the impacts right now. On the board of 3 organizations and it's constant discussion about how we handle every event/public interaction at this point. All of it day by day because things are so fluid.

Monroe County has their first and there are a few people being tested in Greece (the town). They were in Italy last week. Daughter's volleyball in buffalo canceled for the weekend. USA Hockey Nationals canceled (I have friends whose daughters are on the Rochester Edge 14U who were supposed to go after winning NYS last week). It's unfortunate...

Lots of free time coming up.

This is also happening in K-12 schools. A co-worker had his child's school close in Atlanta and they said to prepare for online schooling.