Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

"group of independent market participants who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market"

I suppose we might argue that even the FAANGs together aren't large enough to constitute the full market. Other companies compete over the workforce of FAANG-eligible workers. The long tail of such SV employers with lower employee headcount a is still probably large in the aggregate. Though even apart from no-poaching agreements I've seen it speculated that FAANGs may employ large #s of talented people somewhat unnecessarily purely to keep them out of the hands of current competitors or potential startups that could grow into competition. That's a bit too conspiratorial for me though, at least without more evidence

I see it in what I am doing every day. I truly want to manufacture in the US. I really do. I am angry about this whole situation because of it. Stupid policies prevent me from having the option to manufacture in the US. Policies that are so destructive that you are left with no option but to send the work to China. The only other option is to go out of business.

I do not want to do this! Yet my government and the ignorant masses who vote for them and support their ignorant ways effectively forces me to take that path. It does not have to be this way at all. Yet, on the current path, things are not trending towards getting better at all.

My partners and I have already discussed moving all manufacturing to China. All of it. Just like Apple, we would design here and manufacture there. I am the only one who is stubbornly holding that decision back. And I know I am going to lose. There's nothing I can do about it. It's like fighting the laws of physics. And then I post here and people who don't have a clue refuse to even think about this and attempt to understand. How have we become so ignorant.

It isn't about a single policy. It isn't just about minimum wage. It's death by a thousand cuts.

I'll give you another example that won't be popular. What we are doing with the southern border is absolutely criminal. I haven't kept up with numbers. I think the last estimate I read was that over 1.5 million people got in...and that's the ones we know about.

BY DEFINITION: Every single one of them is unemployed. Yet, they are not counted in unemployment statistics because, well, they don't exist. Even worse, we are not creating 1.5 million NEW jobs per year for them. If we were, there could be justification for accepting people with the right skill sets. We are not. Which means we are importing unemployment. We might even be importing people who will be abused and work for menial wages in the shadows. No matter how you look at it, this isn't a plan for economic growth and stability at all. We are losing jobs and we are importing unemployment.

What's another layer of stupidity? Energy policy. It is beyond belief that we are letting people like AOC even have a word in this conversation. Solar energy is fantastic. I built a 13 kW array. As an engineer, I know everything there is to know about solar and then some. I also know that we need to build nuclear power plants like there is no tomorrow. Solar is far from clean. A solar power plant equivalent to a nuclear plant consumes so much land and resources most would be horrified. Not to mention effects on wildlife, etc.

If we are going to achieve the dream of converting our ground transportation fleet to electric vehicles we are going to need to DOUBLE our power generation capacity (and power transmission infrastructure). You cannot do this with solar. Solar is unreliable and expensive. You have to do it with nuclear, at least a majority of it. That means duplicating the entire US's power generation capacity. We need twice the power. That means we need an ADDITIONAL 1200 GW. A typical nuclear power plant is rated at 1 GW. Yes, that means we need to build somewhere in the order of 1000 nuclear power plants, or maybe 500 and make-up the rest with solar, natural gas, etc.

The other one is the war against oil. This is so ridiculous it hurts to even think about it.

Simple concept: We all want clean cars and clean energy. At scale (300 million vehicles) this means undertaking the largest set of infrastructure projects in the history of this nation. Yes, heavy construction and manufacturing throughout the land.

What do we need to move materials, dirt, concrete, rebar, solar panels, grade and dig the land, etc.? OIL! With oil at $130 per barrel there is no way in hell we can afford the infrastructure development that would be required to transition a nation like the US to clean energy. We need $20 per barrel oil for 25 years. With a mission. In other words, it can't be about lower the cost of oil so we can have cheaper gasoline and diesel. It has to be: We need cheap gasoline and diesel so we can build thousands of solar, wind and nuclear power plants as well as upgrade our entire power delivery infrastructure over 25 to 50 years so we can transition to more those power sources.

Once again, politicians drive the narrative that is most convenient for them in order to secure jobs and remain in power until they retire with nice benefits and pensions. The carnage and long term destruction they create is lost on everyone living for the moment. Sadly, most people don't exercise much in the way of critical and strategic thinking when they vote for and support these charlatans.

Anyhow, yeah, I am angry and frustrated because I want to work in my country and create jobs here but my government and the people who support their dumb policies prevents me from doing this. Even trying to educate people about these realities is futile.

What happens to a lot of business owners --after getting tired of hitting their heads against the wall-- is to capitulate and take a "if you can't beat them, join them" position where they make good money for themselves and stop caring about not being able to create jobs and build full companies here (or in Europe, same problems).

The Democrats in democrat states have enacted paid parental leave, paid sick leave, higher minimum wages, banned non compete, and many other pro labor laws. At the federal level, the Dems got ACA pushed through also, even though they barely had the numbers and still had to compromise a lot due to just having 50 or 51 Senators, meaning the 1 or 2 Democrats in name only can hold legislation hostage to their will.

It just happened again last year with the Build Back Better bill.